July 18, 2025
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Baseball: Coe College turns two with Bureau Valley’s Sam Rouse, Sam Wright

By Kevin Hieronymus
Bureau Valley seniors Sam Wright (left) and Sam Rouse sign to play baseball for Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa next year. They are joined by Storm coach Ryan Schisler, who played and coached for Coe.

Bureau Valley seniors Sam Wright (left) and Sam Rouse sign to play baseball for Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa next year. They are joined by Storm coach Ryan Schisler, who played and coached for Coe. (Photo courtesy Bureau Valley High School)

MANLIUS - Bureau Valley seniors Sam Rouse and Sam Wright will take their game of pitch and catch to Coe College next year.

Wright, a senior catcher, batted .402 with 10 doubles, a home run and 24 RBIs for the Storm last year.

Rouse had a stellar junior season on the mound, posting an 8-1 record with a 1.84 ERA and 64 strikeouts. He also batted .318 with 13 RBIs.

The Storm seniors proved to be a packaged duo, both signing recently to play for the Kohawks.

“Coe College has a very welcoming campus and feels like home to me,” said Rouse, who will study Business Administration. “Coe has high academic standards and will help me be successful in life. The baseball program is very competitive with a great coaching staff that I hope will allow me to mature as a student-athlete.”

“Both Coach (Steve) Cook and the rest of the team were so easy to get along with,” said Wright, who plans to study engineering. “After one weekend of hanging out with the guys on the team I really felt like that’s where I wanted to be the next four years.”

There is a connection to the Coe College campus in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with the Bureau Valley program. Storm skipper Ryan Schisler played and coached for the Kohawks.

“The goal was always to help these guys get to a point where they could play at the next level, and there is no doubt that they have done the work to earn that opportunity,” Schisler said. “I would have been happy to have them go on and extend their careers anywhere, but having them feel a connection and fit with Coe as they went through their recruiting process was just icing on the cake for me.

“The staff at Coe are all guys that I coached with or players that I coached when I was there, so that will be neat to hand Wright and Rouse off to a group of guys I know really well. Coach Cook and I still talk pretty regularly, so when I had guys that were looking at playing college baseball who are the kind of kids that Sam and Sam are, there’s no doubt I wanted to get them in front of him.

“The more Coach Cook got to know them through recruiting, he saw what I’ve seen in them the last six years. I know he feels that they have a ton of potential and will be a great fit for the culture in their program, so that is exciting to pass the torch in that respect.”