Schofields have shortstop covered
When you watch Batavia baseball and Batavia softball this year, you might notice a similarity - especially when you look at the shortstops.
Senior Alexa Schofield plays shortstop on the softball, and is one of the team's captains. Junior Tim Schofield is a shortstop on the baseball team.
Alexa is a year older than Tim, so did his older sister teach him to play shortstop?
"Our dad taught us both," smiled Tim.
A believer: After watching his Geneva team lose for the first time Saturday to West Aurora, coach Matt Hahn gave the credit to the Blackhawks.
"They are 3-3, but they are not a 3-3 team," Hahn said. "They are going to win a lot of games."
West Aurora has one more week of nonconference games before starting their DuPage Valley schedule.
Slow starts had plagued the Blackhawks in their first five games, but they avoided that in a big way against the Vikings with 8 runs in the first inning.
"Much better job by our team coming out with energy early," West Aurora coach John Reeves said.
"We were pretty intense from (the first inning on)," West Aurora first baseman Brandon Lawrence said. "The first few games we came out playing dumb."
Not looking ahead: Batavia senior Brian Krolikowski certainly has a bright future, headed to Miami-Ohio next fall, but all he's worried about now is helping Batavia get it going after a 2-4 start.
The Bulldogs start Western Sun Conference play this week against Rochelle.
"I'm really looking forward to Miami, I love it there, it's a great atmosphere there, exactly what I was looking for," Krolikowski said. "I've hung out with the team twice. The bonding and chemistry is fantastic. But my head right now is with the Bulldogs for the rest of the year."
One thing that would be a big help to Batavia is getting Jordan Coffey and Adam Karger back on the mound.
Coffey, who has been playing center field, spent about 10 minutes after Thursday's win over Sandwich throwing off the mound. He's getting closer to returning, perhaps a week or so away, and coach Matt Holm said when Coffey comes back he'll start out throwing a couple innings at a time.
Holm also hopes to have Karger back as soon as possibly the end of this week. Karger fanned 19 in a start this summer against Sycamore.
Krolikowski knows there are plenty of games left on the schedule.
"We had a couple games where it's freezing, sometimes it's hard to keep your hands warm up at bat," Krolikowski said. "Basically you have so many games you kind of have some off periods. We've been playing great lately and I'm really confident in the way we've turned it around and I think it's going to be a really successful season."
Welcome back: St. Charles North is back in the suburbs this week after its annual trip to southern Illinois. Provided we're finished with snow, the North Stars will play at Jacobs on Wednesday.
Elsewhere this week, Kaneland and Geneva square off in a three-game Western Sun series. It's still early April, but these three games usually end up playing a factor in how the conference race plays out.
St. Charles East also gets its conference schedule under way Thursday against Waubonsie Valley. Marmion has a key Suburban Catholic battle against Driscoll.