PITTSBURG — Former Mustang and current Pittsburg State Gorilla Ryker Curry lives and breathes baseball.
Curry received an offer to play baseball at Pitt State during his senior year at Iola High School. He took All-State First Team honors after going 4-1 with a 2.85 ERA his senior year.
The Gorilla just finished his first season at Pitt State. He took a redshirt season.
“It was a great first year,” said Curry. “I learned a lot about the game and about myself as a pitcher. This was the first time I have solely focused on pitching. I love the coaching staff at Pitt State, they are great.
“I learned a lot of things about pitching that I had never even thought of. The biggest thing was developing routines on and off the field to make me a better pitcher.”
Bob Fornelli is the head coach at PSU, just the sixth coach to reach 1,000 career wins at the Division II level.
While at Iola, Curry helped lead the Mustangs to a Class 4A 2022 state tournament appearance in Salina.
“My best memory of playing at Iola was winning the regional we hosted in 2022 and making it to state,” he said. “That was a very cool experience.”
As a Mustang, Curry finished his junior year with a perfect 3-0 record and allowed opposing batters to only hit .190 against him. Curry’s fastball also sat somewhere around 85 mph in high school.
Through 17 innings pitched in his senior year, Curry went 3-1 with a 2.77 ERA and had a team-high 27 strikeouts while allowing only 11 runs and 10 hits.
“I hoped to leave a tone that if you work hard, anything can happen,” Curry said. “I always dreamed of playing college baseball but wasn’t sure if it would happen. I just tried to lead by example. I wasn’t a big talker but I tried to work hard every day, hoping the younger guys would see that and want to work just as hard or harder.”
Unfortunately during his senior year at Iola, Curry’s shoulder acted up and changed the path of his spring season. The sudden change forced Curry to move to designated hitter. He batted .424 with 26 RBI’s with a 1.109 OPS after moving over to designated hitter.
Curry played in the KABC Senior All-Star Game at Kansas State University after his senior season. 
“I think they (coaches and teammates) would describe me as a competitor and a hard worker,” said Curry. “As a pitcher I feel like I was a guy that was going to throw a lot of strikes and give us a chance to win. If I am in the zone and throwing strikes, I’m usually good.”
Transitioning from high school to college baseball is a big jump for an athlete of any caliber. Players are bigger, faster and stronger at the next level and the game moves a lot faster, something Curry has had to adjust to this spring.
