Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – When the global coronavirus pandemic brought sports to an abrupt halt this spring it was easy for coaches and athletes to look only at the negatives.

Stuck at home, with spring sports cancelled and the summer seasons in limbo many prep players saw a dire situation.

Gable Mitchell saw an opportunity.

Rather than sitting idle while awaiting word on if baseball would be played this summer Mitchell put his time out of school and away from organized practice to good use.

“I think that quarantine time when everything was closed and everyone was at home I really took advantage of that at my house and in my backyard,” Mitchell said. “I spent every day out there playing catch and working on infield drills. A backyard gets ripped up pretty easily and it creates tough hops and that really helped me get better.”

What amounted to an extended spring training of sorts for Mitchell included sessions in the batting cage along with his backyard infield workouts.

When prep sports eventually got the green light to return in mid-June the preseason workouts propelled Mitchell to a breakout sophomore season.

Mitchell hit a career-high .433 in the pandemic-shortened season, nearly matching his hit total from his debut season in half the at bats while earning all-state honors for the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association.

For all of his efforts Mitchell has been named the 2020 Your Prep Sports area baseball player of the year.

“I think he’s gotten stronger and that has helped him offensively,” City High head coach and Gable’s father Brian Mitchell said. “I think part of it is he’s matured, he’s gotten better physically, he’s confident, he knows he’s good. He’s a smart kid, he’s been around the game and played the game a lot so he knows what to do.”

Mitchell flashed his potential as a rare freshman starter last season hitting .267 in his first taste of varsity action.

This season he took his game to another level.

The switch hitting Mitchell led City High with a .433 batting average and had five extra-base hits and 17 RBI in 60 at bats.

As a freshman Mitchell had seven extra-base hits and 18 RBI in 120 at bats.

“Obviously I got bigger and stronger and it was easier to drive balls especially the other way,” Gable Mitchell said. “That was what my approach was and that helped me a lot getting base hits where they pitch you.”

A defensive whiz at shortstop, Mitchell was even better defensively as a sophomore.

He committed just four errors and had a .952 fielding percentage while routinely making especially difficult chances look easy.

“My defense has always been good but I think I got better this year,” Gable Mitchell said. “I struggled hitting a little my freshman year and this year I think I really stepped that up. That was huge.”

One of the biggest strides for Mitchell this season didn’t show up in any stat sheet.

Both Brian and Gable Mitchell agreed the leadership of the sophomore shortstop took a step forward as the Little Hawks dealt with a roller coaster of a season.

“Gable is a really, really competitive kid in everything that he does,” Brian Mitchell said. “Our practices sometimes get crazy competitive and he is the leader of that.”

The strong season from Mitchell helped City High to an 11-9 record and most importantly its first state tournament berth since 2003.
For a program that routinely ranked as one of the state’s best throughout the 1990s and early 2000s that 17-year state tournament drought was tough to swallow.

Though this year’s trip to the 4A tournament ended with a disappointing 7-6 loss to Dubuque Hempstead Gable Mitchell says it should serve as a springboard for the Little Hawks going forward.

“It was crazy because I wasn’t even born the last time City High went to state,” Gable Mitchell said. “To get to state and be in that position where we were right there to move on and you never know what is going to happen after that it was amazing. Now we’ve been there and we know what it’s like and we were young this year and we have a lot coming back so we’ll be ready.”

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