LZ's Witt recovering well from surgery

If Robert Thompson of St. Louis is as good a doctor as he is generous, Tanner Witt should have nothing to worry about.

Witt, a shortstop for Lake Zurich, has been under Thompson's care for about a week now and got not only a career-saving surgery out of the deal, but Cubs tickets as well.

Witt traveled to St. Louis to have surgery for a condition called "thoracic outlet syndrome," which involves a crowded vein in the shoulder area being constricted to the point that a blood clot forms.

Last month, an inch-and-a half clot had formed in Witt's arm and he spent four days in intensive care while doctors dissolved it. He then traveled to St. Louis so that Thompson, an expert in treating the condition, could reconfigure his crowded shoulder area to prevent clotting from ever occur again.

The surgery last Friday went well, but was long and grueling. Thompson figured that after 11 hours in the operating room, Witt could use a pick-me-up. So he offered Witt and his parents tickets to today's Cubs-Cardinals game in St. Louis.

Witt was released from the hospital on Wednesday, but is required to stay in St. Louis for another few days until he can get his stitches removed.

"That was really nice of (Thompson)," said Tommy Witt, Tanner's dad. "It's nice that Tanner is getting to do something fun instead of just sitting in his hotel room."

Although, the game isn't all for fun.

Witt will also have an assignment while he's there. Part of the reason Thompson wanted Witt to go to the game is that one of the coaches for St. Louis, a former player himself, once had the exact same surgery that Witt had.

Tanner and his parents were planning to meet with the coach before the game.

"We also found out that this 30-year-old woman snowboarder just had the surgery like eight weeks ago and she's doing really well," Tommy Witt said. "It's good to know about these other people who have gone through the same thing."

And what Witt went through was quite a lot.

Once Thompson got a close-up look at the situation, he found that the restricted vein had been squeezed to the point that scar tissue had developed. His solution was to replace it with a section of vein taken from Witt's thigh.

Thompson also removed Witt's top rib and two of the muscles in his neck that held the rib in place.

He also made an incision in Witt's wrist to assist with blood flow during the surgery.

"We were shocked that the surgery ended up being so involved," Tommy Witt said. "We weren't expecting that."

The Witts weren't expecting a 12-week recovery period either.

It's a conservative estimate, but it's also much, much longer than the six-to-eight week window that was originally projected for Witt.

Once hoping that he might be able to return for the state tournament, Witt is now faced with the possibility of missing a large chunk of the summer recruiting season.

"It's absolutely killing Tanner to think about that," Tommy Witt said. "But he knows that in order for him to play baseball in the long run, he needed this procedure and he knows that his chances of having success in the future increase if he follows what his doctor is saying now.

"But as soon as those stitches dissolve, Tanner's been told that he can jog and workout and do a lot of that kind of stuff, so I have a feeling he'll jump right into that so that he'll be ready when he can come back and play."

Worth the drive: Bad weather and darkness has caused two Carmel games -- against New Trier and Libertyville -- to be suspended this season.

And in a season in which teams are playing almost daily in an effort to make up for all the games that were canceled earlier in the season because of horrible weather conditions, open days are few are far between.

So Carmel coach Chuck Gandolfi came up with an idea. Why not ask the coaches at New Trier and Libertyville if they'd like to play on Sunday to complete their suspended games -- and maybe even play an extra game for kicks?

To sweeten the deal, Gandolfi has thrown in a chance to play the games in a minor league stadium.

That part is courtesy of prominent Carmel alum Patrick Salvi, a Waukegan lawyer who recently became the new owner of the Gary RailCats, a minor league team in the Northern League.

The RailCats play at a relatively new stadium called the Steel Yard, which sits right along the Indiana Toll Road in Gary.

"Mr. Salvi said we could use it and we think that's really great because it's a beautiful field," Gandolfi said. "We're just looking for someone to play us there."

A potential holdup with both New Trier and Libertyville could be whether or not, as public schools, they can get clearance to compete on a Sunday.

Quick start: Call Paul Piorer a quick study.

The Carmel sophomore was just recently promoted to varsity and already he's gotten a home run and a few innings on the mound.

Against New Trier, he drove in 4 runs and he also gave a solid effort in relief against Joliet Catholic -- even getting the Corsairs out of a jam.

"We felt we needed some pitching insurance," Carmel coach Chuck Gandolfi said. "With the way the weather was early, we're playing every day now and we wanted some more pitching. (Piorer) is a pretty good pitcher and he's shown that he can hit the ball well, too."

Welcome back: Having lost six of its last eight games, Wauconda needed a pick-me-up. And got one.

The Bulldogs learned this week that one of their top pitchers, Bryce Lahrman, would finally be returning to the mound for duty.

Lahrman, who is interchangeable with Josh Hartnett as the team's ace, had been out of commission for a few weeks to rest a sore shoulder. His absence coincided with most of Wauconda's cold streak.

"Any time you lose a quality pitcher like that, it's going to be tough," Wauconda coach Bill Sliker said. "He was pitching fairly consistently for us. We're hoping that he'll be able to get back on track."

Apples to apples? As if the IHSA's new class system hasn't made the state tournament enough of an adventure into the unknown, baseball coaches were faced with all kinds of questions on Wednesday as they tried to simply sort through their sectional seeding meetings.

Because bad weather washed out dozens of games earlier in the season, many teams haven't played nearly as many games as they would have normally at this point in the season. In fact, some teams have played fewer than 10 games, which leaves fellow coaches to wonder how they can fairly evaluate and seed teams with so little to go on.

Grayslake Central coach Troy Whalen has been receiving paperwork all week from the coaches whose teams will participate in the Class 3A sectional at Grayslake Central. He says that of the 21 teams involved, seven have played fewer than 10 games.

That's one-third of the field.

"This is going to make for an interesting process," Whalen said before the seeding meeting. "I don't know how you can really judge a team when they've played so few games. You have to go by something, but what?"

Reputation?

Scratch that -- at least in Class 3A where teams from the Chicago area are mixed in with suburban teams from as far away as Antioch.

"In the past, you knew who was good based on reputation and scores you saw in the paper and things like that," Wauconda coach Bill Sliker said. "With some of these Chicago schools, I don't see their scores, I don't know what they're doing. I'm not even sure where these schools are, to be honest with you."

Caged Cats: During a four-game losing streak earlier this season, Libertyville was struggling to hit the ball.

Then, the Wildcats went on run in which they scored a total of 83 runs in seven games. They went 6-1 over that stretch.

The difference?

The completion of a project.

Before the season even began, Libertyville coach Jim Schurr was anxious to see his plans for the installation of four new batting cages come to fruition.

The cages were to be installed over a new turf area down the left field line while the Wildcats were away for Spring Break in Arizona. They were to be ready for use when the team returned.

But bad weather pushed the project back and it wasn't able to be completed until about two weeks ago -- which, not coincidentally, is about the same time the Wildcats started to hit the ball better.

"The cages went in the day we played Carmel and we got to hit for about 30 minutes before the game and we scored 15 runs in four innings," Schurr said. "It made such a difference being able to do that.

"We didn't have any outdoor cages before that. When you have to hit in the cages inside, you don't see the ball the same. The lighting is different. You're not faced with the same conditions -- the cold, the wind. Once we got to start hitting outside, we started hitting a lot better. You can see the difference, without a doubt."

Schurr said that Tom Jacobson, Tim Matheson, Chase Guarnaccio, Lucas Guarnaccio, Louis Educate and Jeremy Butler seem to be faring particularly well since the installation of the new cages.

Good start: With a 6-1 North Suburban Prairie Division record as of Wednesday, Antioch is off to its best start since the North Suburban Conference split into two divisions nearly eight years ago.

"Our kids are pumped up," Antioch coach Paul Petty said. "They're excited. They know about (the history). They know how important every (division) game is now and they want to keep it going."

That's dedication: No wonder Logan Kent is Antioch's best hitter.

The junior catcher and infielder is hitting around .500, thanks in part to his extra workouts with assistant coach John Russo.

Russo has been helping Kent tweak an already good swing to make it even better.

One Sunday, Kent was supposed to meet Russo at 7 a.m. at the high school for one of their sessions. He awoke to find that both of the family cars were gone.

"I guess Logan's parents went on errands or to church or something so he had no ride to school," Antioch coach Paul Petty said. "But instead of just staying home, Logan ran, with his bat bag over his shoulder, all the way to school."

And how far was that?

"Logan lives at least 2½ miles from school," Petty said. "That's impressive. He's a good kid like that and that's why he's such a good player."

Kent comes from good stock. Older brother Chandler plays baseball at Rose-Hulman.

Quote of the day: Antioch coach Paul Petty on trying to fairly seed teams in the Grayslake Central sectional that have played fewer than 10 games so far this season (because of bad weather). Seven of the 21 teams in the field fall into that category. Seeding meetings were held on Wednesday: "It's impossible to get a good read on where teams like that are really at. I feel bad for them and I apologize right now because I know I'm probably going to mess it up. I don't know, I think I'm going to just bring my coin and start flipping it and see what happens."