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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the latest in a series looking back at the top 10 baseball teams, coaches, games and players from last decade
My Sun-Gazette colleagues and I often approached Loyalsock baseball games, especially regular-season ones, a similar way. We do our best to shine a light on as many players as possible so it was going to take something really special for us to interview Kyle Datres since he already had made numerous headlines during football and basketball seasons.
And so many times we still found ourselves interviewing Datres after those games because he did something else special, something we had rarely seen or never seen before. He was a five-tool baseball player and a human highlight reel. Datres was a player who could overwhelm you with his talent, his mind and his will. Then, when the biggest games arrived, the most precarious moments arose, Datres delivered time after time after time.
We live in a society where so many seem to forget past sports achievements and christen anyone good the best ever. As amazing as Datres was, he is not the best high school player in state history.
But one could have a hard time finding many Pennsylvania players with a better high school baseball resume.
One part Roy Hobbs, one part Steve Nebraska, Datres basically did it all in four remarkable years from 2012-15. He helped Loyalsock enjoy one of the best four-year runs in state history, capturing two Class AA state championships and reaching three State Final Fours. Loyalsock also won three district and three league championships as well as 89 games. A three-time all-state selection, Datres also earned three Sun-Gazette Player of the Year and three Pitcher of the Year Awards. He hit .444, smashed 10 home runs and produced more than 120 hits and runs as well as driving in 80 runs and going over 50 stolen bases. Datres also was 29-4 with a 1.34 ERA, going a remarkable 12-1 in the postseason.
Datres did all that after also being a three-time all-state selection in football and basketball. He then became a three-year starter at North Carolina who helped the Tar Heels reach the 2018 College World Series before being drafted by the Colorado Rockies.
“Do I think he’s the best overall player in the state? Absolutely,” former Loyalsock coach Jeremy Eck said after Datres earned four straight wins en route to the 2014 state championship. “Some of the guys that get the recognition and notoriety are guys who are not going both ways. I’m not taking anything away from them, but Kyle is the guy that can do it all. If you put him behind the dish he’d be one of the best catchers in the state, if you put him at first base he would be the best. That’s just his mentality. He’s a special player. The Mike Mussina’s, the Kelly Mazzante’s, the Tierney Pfirman’s, he’s with them. You don’t see it very often and for our area to produce the athletes we do, he’s special.”
Datres was the district’s best lead-off hitter last decade, and arguably its best pitcher and baserunner as well. He also was an outstanding shortstop who never hit lower than .400 or had an on-base percentage lower than .500. In addition to winning 29 games on the mound, he also allowed less than 100 hits in 218 1/3 career innings while striking out an area-best 305. Datres saved five games, averaged well above a strikeout per inning each season and won his first 12 playoff decisions while not losing his first scholastic game until the 2013 regular-season finale.
“Kyle is great because he gets better every time we send him out there,” fellow three-time all-state selection Jimmy Webb said in 2014. “No matter what happens, it seems like every day someone is saying it’s the best they’ve ever seen him and we’re at a point on the field where we say ‘you know what? You’re going to be even better than last time so let’s go.'”
Datres seemed ready to go pretty much from birth. He shined at every youth level and by high school possessed an Albert Einstein-like baseball mind. Slightly bobble the ball or nonchalantly approach an apparent single and watch Datres turn it into a double. Lose focus for an instant and Datres could burn an opponent. The most notable examples came in the 2013 postseason. Hughesville was one out from capturing the 2013 district title when Datres stood on third in the bottom of the seventh. When the pitcher briefly turned his back, Datres broke and stole home, tying the game. Eight days later, the Delone Catholic catcher hit Loyalsock batter Robbie Klein’s helmet following a walk while throwing the ball back to the pitcher and Datres sprinted home with a valuable insurance run.
“Datres is one of the smartest players in the state and that was just a great move by him,” former Hughesville coach Casey Waller said after that 2013 district final.
“He’s lethal on the bases,” Klein said after the 9-5 state quarterfinal win against Delone Catholic.
As a freshman, Datres already was one of the state’s premier players. He hit .519 with 15 extra-base hits, 25 RBIs and 16 steals as Loyalsock went 21-3 and captured the district title. He also went 9-0 with a 0.96 ERA, allowing just 22 hits in 52 2/3 innings while striking out 76.
It was in 2013, however, that Datres really started becoming legendary. Statistically, his numbers actually went down some, but he was a force throughout the playoffs, surrendering just one run in 16 playoff innings entering the state final. He then threw a complete game against one-loss Beaver as Loyalsock won, 5-4 and captured the program’s second state title. Datres also delivered a series of big hits and went 4-0 with a save that postseason.
“Kyle has been great for us all year. He’s definitely stepping up in the postseason,” infielder Ethan Moore said after the Delone Catholic game. “He’s a big-time pitcher and that’s what he does.”
“Every time Kyle comes out you know what you’re going to get,” first baseman Tommy Baggett said. “He’s definitely a battler and he’s one of the best athletes in the state.”
Datres never encountered a battle he was not eager to fight. He was immensely talented, but so are a lot of baseball players. What took Datres to a level few in this area have ever seen was his unrelenting will, and his yeoman-like work ethic. In any aspect of life, if a score was being kept, Datres wanted to win. He played three sports at all-state levels, but never tired, rarely took a day off and always was looking for ways to improve.
Datres was the ultimate leader. Always humble, but never afraid to tell someone what needed done, Datres was like a coach on the field. As good as he was, Datres never viewed himself as anything but another player, a quality that endeared him to teammates, coaches and opponents.
And when one of your best players is like that, it sets a tone for the entire team. Datres did that in all three sports and those intangibles played a major role in Loyalsock going 89-14 in his four years. He just wanted to win and so did all the Lancers.
“He does it the right way. He’s a great kid and he does whatever it takes for his team, period,” Eck said. “The kid deserves everything he receivers because when it matters most he goes out and gets the job done.”
Everything that made Datres great came together in one remarkable 2014 postseason run. Injuries had decimated the Loyalsock pitching staff by midseason, but Datres simply would not let the Lancers lose once the playoffs arrived. Whatever Loyalsock needed, Datres provided and he again raised his average throughout the playoffs.
It was on the mound, however, where Datres put together, possibly, the greatest postseason any area pitcher has ever experienced. The right-hander, who mixed devastating breaking and off-speed pitches with fastballs that sometimes reached the low 90s, went 6-0 and allowed just four runs in 40 innings as Loyalsock repeated as state champions. Datres seemed in another dimension at times, throwing 27 2/3 straight scoreless innings between the district quarterfinals and the Eastern Region Final. He struck out 46 in 40 innings, shutout defending champion Hughesville and District 11 champion Notre Dame Green-Pond while throwing five scoreless innings against Bald Eagle Area. So devastating was Datres that he retired 36 of the first 39 batters he faced in states, winning all four games in a 12-day span and throwing a masterful one-hitter against Notre Dame.
Datres capped his incredible postseason run by throwing a complete-game five-hitter against undefeated Central while also going 3 for 3 as Loyalsock won the state championship, 5-1. This was his stage, he was the maestro and Datres conducted a baseball symphony.
“With Kyle I’m never surprised anymore,” catcher Evan Moore said after the state final. “We just kind of expect it because that’s how he is. He’s the best athlete I’ve ever played with.”
“You know what you’re getting every time he goes on the mound,” pitching coach Nate Hill said. “It seems like each day he is getting better and better. He doesn’t get nervous or anything like that. This is what he lives for.”
Nothing changed in his final season. Loyalsock was invited to play in the prestigious National High School Baseball Invitational that spring against some of the country’s best teams. Datres showed why he was headed for North Carolina, throwing six scoreless innings in two victories, earning a win and a save while allowing just two hits and striking out eight.
Datres picked up where he left off in 2014 and went 7-1 with a 1.17 ERA, allowing just 20 hits and striking out 78 in 51 1/3 innings. Most impressive, Datres allowed just one hit or no hits seven times, including in the district quarterfinals when he helped Loyalsock survive a scare against Southern Columbia. That day, Datres won his 12th straight postseason game, striking out 11 and retiring the last 15 batters he faced in a game that was scoreless until the sixth inning.
“Nothing else matters. It just matters that we have to try and get a win any way we can get it. If it’s 1-0 if it’s 10-9 it doesn’t matter,” Datres said afterward. “We just want to get a win any way we can get it.”
Datres helped Loyalsock do that 23 times in 2015 and the Lancers won 21 straight games before Neumann-Goretti defeated it in the state semifinals. Along the way, Datres hit .420 with a .592 on-base percentage, three home runs, 19 RBIs and 29 runs. Today, Datres’s baseball journey continues as he tries reaching the Majors. And his legacy only grows stronger with each passing year as what he did looks even more impressive than it did back then.
“Some people say you read about it all the time in the newspaper. He deserves it,” Eck said. “You don’t see this. People need to come out and see this and appreciate the level of talent we have and what he is.”
If one missed out, he or she missed quite a performance. Good luck ever seeing one like it again.