T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Pictured are three members of the Marshalltown baseball team who have fought back from major surgery to contribute for the state-bound Bobcats. Pictured, from left, are Dru Dobbins, Sam Irwin and Kody Ricken.

Dru Dobbins slogged through a sophomore season that included 11 doubles, no home runs and 15 RBIs. Fresh off his first knee surgery, the Marshalltown baseball team’s supposed slugger was anything but.

He tried playing basketball last winter, too, and that’s when the knee gave out a second time.

Last summer, Kody Ricken’s junior season of baseball included just 12 games after he got caught between a slide and pulling up, and instead he went down in a pile at second base in a home game against Urbandale.

Sam Irwin’s senior year of track and field got off to a bumpy start, when he clipped the third hurdle during the 400-meter hurdles event in Marshalltown’s first outdoor meet at Waukee. The suspected wrist sprain was substantially worse.

Irwin recovered well enough to be a part of the Bobcats’ state-qualifying sprint medley relay team, but he missed nearly one month of his senior summer of baseball on the mend from a broken bone in his hand.

These three Marshalltown High School baseball players each saw flashbacks of their rehabilitation after last week’s state-clinching substate victory over Iowa City High, and suddenly all the work became worth it.

“Last year, this was the only thing on my mind,” Ricken said following the Bobcats’ 9-2 triumph in the Class 4A Substate 3 title game at the MHS diamond. “When I woke up to go to physical therapy, this was what it was for. I can’t even put words to it, what it feels like. All that hard work paid off.”

Ricken, the starting senior catcher on Marshalltown’s state-bound baseball team, hobbled around for months in an immobilizer after having surgery to repair torn anterior and lateral collateral ligaments in his left knee. He said his surgeon, Dr. Thomas Greenwald at the McFarland Clinic in Ames, had never seen anything like it.

“He did my surgery and told me I wouldn’t be able to catch again, and now I’m out here going to play for state,” said Ricken. “I gave him a look and he’s like, ‘you’re giving me a look like you’re going to try and catch, and I said ‘I’ve always been a catcher.’

“When I was six months out of surgery I went back for another checkup and he said ‘I think you can do it.'”

Irwin, the Bobcats’ senior starting second baseman, said he initially received a similar prognosis.

“The first doctor said I was done with high school sports, and that brought me to tears right there in the office,” said Irwin, “but thankfully my other doctor got me in the next day and scheduled my surgery for the following week and I think it was 14 weeks later I played baseball.”

Dr. James Friederich, also at McFarland in Ames, gave Irwin the second opinion he was hoping for. Surgery for a broken bone in his wrist worked well enough to get him through the rest of track season in a cast, and eventually various braces have helped him endure the rigors of playing baseball.

Not to mention the pain tolerance.

He returned near midseason and has played in 22 of 38 games for the Bobcats (20-18), but there’s not many ways to protect his wrist on the diamond.

“It’s my last 20 games ever, it doesn’t hurt, let’s go play,” Irwin said of his mindset. “I guess I’ve just learned how to deal with it. I don’t think it will ever be the same but it was definitely worth it for sure.

“Credit to my teammates working their butts off and getting us to this position. We’ve got a lot of good players and every piece of the puzzle really helped. We’ve got one common goal, we rallied together and we’re at state now playing at Principal Park.”

It’s been more than a goal for Dobbins. It’s been the goal, and now he and the Bobcats have reached it.

Dobbins, Marshalltown’s junior first baseman, hit a two-run home run that provided all the offense of the Bobcats’ 2-1 win over Cedar Falls in their substate opener on July 13. Heading to state, Dobbins shares the team lead with four home runs and is tops with 28 RBIs.

After last week’s substate win, Dobbins thought more about all the days practicing than his rehabilitation, but it was in there somewhere.

“It doesn’t pop into my head ever, and then I sit back and think ‘I did have two knee surgeries’ and it doesn’t even seem real,” he said. “I put a lot of work in for us to go to state and it paid off.”

Dobbins said he and Ricken did a lot of therapy and rehab together at SportsPlus, since both had reconstructive knee surgeries, and pushed each other toward their common goal along the way.

“My motivation was just baseball,” said Dobbins. “I wanted to get back out there and show them what I could do.

“Me and Rick, this offseason before baseball we were both working hard together. It was kind of nice having him there because before it was just me, but now I have somebody who understands me.”

“We motivated each other to get to rehab and get into the weight room and get after it, and when times were tough we just said, ‘hey, state’s the goal, that’s what we’re here for,'” added Ricken. “That was the main goal and we made it, and I feel really happy about that.

“After we beat Iowa City High in the substate final I remember hugging [senior pitcher Nate] Vance and I was thinking ‘finally all that work paid off.'”

It was a moment all three had dreamed about, and one that head coach Steve Hanson wasn’t sure would happen for the trio that had endured major surgery.

“There was apprehension just bringing them back and putting them in practice because just one tweak — was that just a tweak or was that something? — and once you get over that you decide the surgeon knew what he was doing and our rehab was competent, then you’ve just got to kind of forget about the fact that a year ago at this time Ricken had this thing on his knee and was immobile,” said Hanson, “and now he’s really good. He’s just a rock of a guy who doesn’t get rattled and if I were to pick someone on our team who had to deliver a message to the team, it would be Ricken because people listen.”

Senior outfielder Wyatt Himes missed time in the fall because of a broken bone suffered during football, but he made it back in time to wrestle and was a part of the track team in the spring. He has played in 33 of 38 games for the Bobcats, too, and has rarely missed a step in left field.

“It takes a lot of time and you’ve got to have patience,” said Irwin, “but thankfully I had surgery and was able to come back.

“I thought I was fine, the next morning it hurt, I couldn’t pick up my glass of milk at breakfast and mom said I probably better go to the doctor. A week later in Ames the specialist tells me I’m never going to play again. … It’s been an interesting six months, that’s for sure.”