Carmel's Sivertsen enjoys the ride

On some mornings, Jordan Sivertsen has no time for breakfast.

But he's not about to get up a second earlier just to squeeze it in.

Waking at 5 a.m. for a pre-dawn baseball practice is hard enough.

If he hurries, he has only enough time to throw on his clothes, head to the car and drive straight for Carmel.

It's a 45-minute trek.

But hey, what's a little commuting time when you're having the time of your life?

Sivertsen lives in Richmond, a small town on the Illinois-Wisconsin border about 12 miles west of Antioch and 26 miles from Carmel. He says deciding to go to Carmel was the best decision he ever made -- traffic and all.

"(The drive) can be annoying sometimes," Sivertsen said. "And it's hard to be at practice when it starts at 6 a.m. But I love Carmel."

Clearly, Carmel loves him back.

Sivertsen, a pitcher and outfielder who can hit the daylights out of a ball, will graduate from Carmel this spring as one of the school's best baseball players of all time.

The four-year starter is on the brink of being a part of more than 100 victories there. With baseball season opening across Illinois this week, the timing seemed right for him to share his vision as to where he'd like the very last one to take place.

"I've always wanted to get downstate and win it," Sivertsen said. "That's what I really want for us this year.

"In seventh grade, I started going to Carmel baseball camps. A friend of mine (former Carmel player Jonathan Miller) kept asking me to go with him, so I did. The next year, when I was in eighth grade, Carmel got downstate and I went and watched all the games down there. It was the coolest thing I could ever imagine. Since then, I've probably thought about that every day. Honestly."

Sivertsen has had a few other things on his mind, too.

Recruiting dominated his thoughts until November, when he turned away schools like Arizona and Georgia Tech to accept a generous scholarship offer from Southern Illinois in Carbondale.

"The recruiting thing is crazy," Sivertsen said. "There was a lot of pressure, and you were worried about that instead of just going out and playing. One game, during the summer of my sophomore year, every coach from the SEC was there. It was amazing to see all these guns go up every time you threw the ball.

"It was cool getting letters every day, though."

Sivertsen says he got letters from every major Division I school in the country and got at least 15 to 20 calls on July 1, the first official contact day for juniors.

"When you're hearing from schools like LSU, you're kind of like, 'Oh my God. Wow,' " Sivertsen said. "But once you get down to it and you've got to pick a school, it's really stressful. You just want to get it over with. You don't want to mess it up. You want to make sure you pick the right school."

Southern seemed the perfect fit. Sivertsen was even told that he will start immediately there.

"I'll also be able to play every day," Sivertsen said. "Some schools just wanted me to pitch. I'll be able to hit at Southern, too. I liked that."

Sivertsen also liked the company he'll keep.

He'll be reunited with good friend John Brennan, another four-year starter at Carmel who is currently a freshman at Southern. He is redshirting this year.

"We'll be graduating together now so we'll be hanging out with each other a lot over the next four years," Brennan said. "I'm sure we'll be making a lot of those long five to six hour drives home together, too."

Well, Sivertsen is nothing if not well traveled.

In addition to his incessant commuting, Sivertsen has racked up the miles criss-crossing the country for baseball.

He's played travel ball since he was 9, circulating all over the Midwest. At age 12, his team played 60 games and went 52-8.

As he got older, the trips got longer. Within the last couple of years, Sivertsen has played in tournaments in places like Arizona, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina -- just to name a few.

Last summer, he was gone from home for so long that a host family had to take him in. He spent two months in Ohio playing for the Midland Indians, an elite team comprised of players from all over the country.

"That was really good for Jordan," Carmel coach Chuck Gandolfi said. "He played at a higher level on that team and he wasn't necessarily the top dog, like he is here. It's good to play against really good competition. It just makes you better."

Of course, Sivertsen was pretty good already.

He wasn't quite himself last spring -- thanks to a shoulder injury that prevented him from pitching -- yet he still put up big numbers.

Sivertsen hit 9 homers to run his three-year total to 24. He also drove in 49 runs and racked up 43 hits while maintaining a .420 batting average.

"Jordan is the most laid-back person I've ever met, and that's probably why he's had such a good career," Brennan said. "He's got this mentality where nothing fazes him. You can never really get in Jordan's head about anything. Baseball can play such a mind game on you. It can be frustrating, especially when you're in a slump. But Jordan is such a confident kid. He doesn't let that stress him out. He doesn't let things bother him too much."

Least of all traffic.