GC Slugger Comeback: A Season and Career for The Ages

Published: April 13, 2021

During the summer after his junior baseball season at Greenville College , Stefan Neece's hopes were high.

He had just finished up a season where he led the Panthers to a 20-19 record behind his .417 batting average, 14 home runs and 44 RBI and was dedicating his summer to the sport he loved by playing in a wood bat league near Kansas City.

Prior to a game that summer, Neece, a first baseman by trade, attempted a throw to third base and felt a pop in his left arm. Immediately, he knew there was a problem.

Sharp pain filled his throwing arm and several attempts in the subsequent days and weeks to begin throwing again left him wondering if he could continue his career when the 2009 spring season began. "I struggled throwing the ball 60 feet with any sort of velocity," Neece said.

He decided to skip fall baseball and focus on resting for the spring, but an MRI later showed he needed to have reconstructive surgery. On December 10, 2008, a day Neece remembers well because it started a new chapter, he underwent surgery.

Many athletes will tell you surgery is painful. They'll tell you it's an undesirable place to be. But immediately, Neece noticed the difference. "There wasn't any time during or after surgery or in my rehab that I felt any pain," he said. So he began to work toward returning to the field in 2010. He attended as many GC games as possible, and even made the trip to Florida for the team's spring break trip.

Neece could have played; he didn't need a throwing arm to play the role of designated hitter. However, that would have left him empty. His desire was to guard the first base line as well as anchor a 2010 Panther lineup filled with promise. "I could have DH'd, but we had a good group coming in this year," Neece said, "and I knew if I ever wanted to play after college, I'd have to throw."

Pure Power
Everybody who has watched Stefan Neece play baseball has a story and it usually centers around a five-ounce baseball soaring off his bat.

As a sophomore at Greenville High School, Neece came to the plate in the top of the seventh inning of the Comets sectional championship game. The scoreboard read 5-3, tilted toward the opponents. With a runner on base, the opposing coach took a slow walk to the mound, telling his pitcher "don't let him hit a home run."

Neece hit a home run, tied the game, and gave the Comets new life that sent the game to extra innings. They eventually lost in the bottom half of the eighth, but the seed was planted. Neece could handle pressure. "There was a lot of pressure in that situation and he capitalized," Comets Head Coach Todd Hutchinson said.

Over the next few years, Neece's bat told many stories. There was the game versus Comet conference rival Pana with two runners on base and a base open. The situation screamed intentional walk. Yet, Pana decided to walk him by throwing pitches past him.

Neece, who could turn any pitch into his pitch, took a swipe at a pitch thrown outside and two feet off the ground. The ball bounced inside the left field line, scoring two runs. "He could take a pitch where a guy was trying to walk him and make the pitcher pay," Hutchinson said. "He just found ways to be productive and get guys home."

Driving in runs became his modus operandi in high school where he set the state record for career runs batted in. It stayed with him in college where from the start he was a difference maker at Greenville College.

As a freshman, Neece held a .368 batting average, drove in 52 runners, slugged 10 home runs, and earned the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year honor.

His sophomore season statistics were the lowest numbers of his collegiate career, yet would have been the best year in many players' career. That season, he held a .358 average, and drove in 49 on the strength of eight home runs and 13 doubles.

As a junior, it was obvious that Neece was on the brink of greatness. His .417 batting average was his highest to date, as were his 14 home runs. For good measure, he added 44 RBI, taking his career total to 145.

Then came the injury.

"You've got to want to come back from an injury," Panther Head Coach Lynn Carlson said. It was more than the rehabilitation from the injury that impressed Carlson. It was Neece's entire dedication to getting better. "The way he committed himself to getting into shape really made the difference," Carlson said. "That's as significant a factor as anything he did."

Neece reported to camp in 2010 30 pounds lighter than in 2008 and ready to play the best baseball of his life. "I've never been a person to eat really unhealthy food, I'm just naturally a big guy," he said. "Shedding some of the weight helped my hips and allowed me to bring the bat through the zone faster."

Early in the 2010 season, Neece held a hot bat, getting a hit in each of the Panthers first four games, but it wasn't until a March doubleheader against SLIAC rival Blackburn that he made a splash on the national scene. In two games, he went a combined six for seven with five runs scored, 12 RBI and four home runs.

For the majority of the 2010 season, he flirted with a batting average over the .500 mark and set new GC marks for career home runs, RBI and home runs in a season along the way.

Most hitters encounter a slump of some sort in a season; Neece never did and attributes the sustained success to a mental approach he learned early on. "I kept wondering why I wasn't going into a slump," he said. "It's tough to do, but it comes from stuff I learned in high school and at GC. It's a long season and you can't worry about one bad at bat."

There weren't many bad at bats for Neece in 2010. By the end of the season, he'd set his place at the table of the best hitters in NCAA Division III , leading the country in home runs (19), slugging percentage (1.085), on-base percentage (.663), walks per game (1.29), total walks (54), and had snagged American Baseball Coaches Association All-American first team first baseman honors. Add in his career best 67 runners (making his collegiate total 212) and it was truly a year for the ages. "He proved it for four years in high school and again for four years in college," Hutchinson said. "He's just a special hitter. Some guys are born hitters; he made himself even better by working at it."

Written by Bill Walker, Sports Editor for the Greenville Advocate.
Republished with permission from the Greenville Advocate , Greenville, IL.
For more information contact media@greenville.edu .