In just his second year as head coach of the Falcons baseball team, Andy Oeth has changed the paradigm for Fayette baseball. The team on Wednesday picked up its 10th win of the season, which may be the best in program history.

Records held by the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) date back to 2008. Newspaper records going back to the late 1990s show that Fayette’s best season occurred in 2014 when the team finished 9-9. Older records remain a mystery and may have been lost forever when Fayette’s main high school building burned to the ground in December 2000.

(Anyone with knowledge of past records is asked to contact the Advertiser at sports@fayettenews.com).

One of the players on that 9-9 2014 team now serves as the Falcons’ assistant coach. Max Hilderbrand said helping players achieve more than himself is what coaches dream of. “Your goal is to win as many games as possible and to do it the right way with the right attitude,” he said.

“It all starts, honestly, with Andy,” Hilderband explained. “He’s put in the work to put these boys in the right position and get them the baseball knowledge to find a way to win.”

While past records are unknown, what is certain—and has become unflinchingly obvious to Falcon fans—is that the Fayette team has embarked on an entirely new path and is charting new territory one game at a time. Wednesday’s 5-2 win at Lewis & Clark rival Marceline was Fayette’s seventh in the last nine games and gave the Falcons their 10th win for what is believed to be their first time in school history.

“As far as we can see, this 10-6 Falcon Squad is now the winningest Fayette High School baseball team in history,” said Coach Oeth.

The win also marked Fayette’s first ever against Marceline on the baseball diamond.

Two years ago, Fayette baseball was on life support. Morale was low as the losses piled up as the team finished just 2-18 overall. The Falcons have never had a home field and were often forced to practice inside a local warehouse. Fayette has always played its home games on Estes Field at Central Methodist University and had to schedule practices around CMU games and Missouri’s temperamental spring weather.

But a new partnership has emerged over the last two years between CMU and Fayette. Last fall, Central unveiled a renovated Estes Field, complete with new artificial turf that allows for year-round play in virtually any weather. Central’s Hairston Hall of Fame Head Coach Nate Breland and Coach Oeth have become close collaborators for baseball here in Fayette. Oeth has spent time with Central’s program during the fall season, and the two have lifted relations between the two schools to its highest level in years.

In March, Central signed the first FHS baseball player in two decades when Fayette ace Haden Kelly officially inked a letter of intent to play for Breland and the Eagles next year.

“Over the last two years, we’ve kept a closer eye on Fayette since Andy Oeth took over,” Breland said when he signed Kelly. “Andy’s over there doing it right. We’ve had the opportunity for him to coach on my staff during the fall and watch his practices during the spring.”

This renewed partnership has allowed both teams to use Estes Field much more. Fayette has already played six home games this season, with four more scheduled. If Mother Nature allows the Falcons to play just one of those remaining home games, they will have had the most home games since 2019.

President John F. Kennedy coined the phrase, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” And the tide is coming in at Estes Field. Now in his 10th year as the Eagles’ head coach, Breland has turned Central into one of the NAIA’s premier programs. The Eagles have competed in six-straight NAIA Opening Rounds and one Avista NAIA World Series. To date, 69 Eagles have earned All-Conference honors, 12 players have been named NAIA All-Americans, and six players have earned Player of the Year recognition by the Heart. Breland has also coached 20 players that moved on to play professional baseball, highlighted by Peyton Long, who became the first Eagle drafted since 2011 when the Milwaukee Brewers took him in the 30th round of the 2019 Major League Baseball Draft.

Since cracking the Top 25 for the first time in school history in March 2017, Central Methodist has not fallen out of the national rankings.

Breland, a former CMU player, is a two-time Heart Coach of the Year, and was named the ABCA Region Coach of the Year in 2021 by the American Baseball Coaches Association. His teams hold every team record in program history, including wins in a season with 49 in 2021. Year in and year out, his teams consistently rank among the Top 25 nationally in team statistics.

The Eagles concluded the 2023 regular season 33-15 overall with a 6-1 road win over Culver-Stockton College on Saturday (see story this page).

Fayette was to play its final road game on Tuesday against conference powerhouse Salisbury, before returning to Estes Field for a four-game home stand starting Thursday. The final three games are against teams that have each won 10 games or more this season.