Fox Valley captains: Ben Albano, Austin Jarvis
The all-time records for home runs and RBI in the Fox Valley area were endangered from the first day of the season and never stood a chance, thanks to prolific campaigns at the plate by seniors Ben Albano of Jacobs and Austin Jarvis of Burlington Central, the honorary co-captains of the 2010 Daily Herald all-area baseball team.
In what will go down as two of the greatest individual seasons in area history, the sluggers bolted from the gate quickly and terrorized opposing pitchers over the course of the next 81 days. Their final numbers are staggering.
Jarvis, a catcher, hit 15 home runs and drove in 76 runs. His RBI total is the second highest in Illinois high school history and 3 better than the previous Fox Valley record of 73, set by Larkin's Jason Richardson in 1999. He also posted area highs in doubles (17), triples (8) and runs scored (60) and finished with a batting average of .526 (61-for-116).
"I didn't feel any pressure from it," Jarvis said of chasing the state's all-time RBI mark after finishing 4 shy. "It wasn't something that was on my mind. I was just really focused on reaching our team goals like getting downstate. I just let whatever happened during the season happen."
Albano won the home run race by blasting his 16th on the final day of the regular season against Huntley, topping the previous area mark of 15 set just last season by Brian Brauer of Streamwood. He finished tied for 16th on the state's all-time single-season home run list.
The left fielder amassed 67 RBI, tying him for 15th place in IHSA history. He also hit 11 doubles, 2 triples and won the area batting crown with his average of .533 (64-for-120).
"I really wasn't going for it at the beginning of the year," Albano said of the local home run record. "I didn't even know what the record was. Two days before I hit the one to beat the record I found out there was one."
Albano launched the first salvo in the home run race in a win at Larkin in the season opener on March 18. Jarvis hit a 2-run shot in the fifth inning of the Rockets' season opener on March 22 at Crystal Lake Central, but Albano kept the lead by homering against Schaumburg the next day. Jarvis ripped another homer three days later to tie him. The chase was on.
Along the way each had his highlight moments.
Albano's best day was May 5. He overtook Jarvis in the home run race by one when he launched 3 longballs and drove in 9 runs in a 23-12 victory over Westminster Christian, a team that would go on to win the Class 1A state title a month later.
Jarvis' best moment is tough to pick. He hit a grand slam against Kaneland on March 25, a home run into the wind that cleared the scoreboard at Hinsdale South on April 1, and he enjoyed a 2-homer game against Marengo on April 29 that upped his total to 10, four better than Albano at that point.
But Albano was beginning to heat up. He hit his first 2 home runs early in the season despite being plagued by injuries. He underwent arthroscopic surgery to clean up a knee tendon on Dec. 30, 2009 and hurt his elbow on the second day of practice, which limited his mobility early on. The topper? During Jacobs' spring trip to Arizona in late March, he was trying to bunt during an intrasquad game when the ball ricocheted off his bat and hit him in the eye.
But in the true sense of the word "gamer," Albano played through it despite the fact his eye was swollen shut. "I actually took athletic tape and taped my eye open," he said. "I wore sunglasses the whole game the next day."
Albano suffered from blurred vision for the next two weeks and wasn't deemed 100 percent until April 17 against Grayslake Central. From that point forward he went on a remarkable tear. In his final 23 high school games, the 18-year-old West Dundee resident hit 14 home runs, drove in 54 runs and hit .610.
Albano had shown flashes of power in his junior season, when he hit 7 home runs - including a mammoth shot against Grayslake North that one-hopped an Algonquin shopping center over 430 feet from home plate - but he hit 1 one homer the opposite way to right field.
That changed in 2010, he said, thanks in part to the tutelage of volunteer hitting coach Kirby Smith, the former Barrington coach and Illinois hall-of-famer.
"He helped me a lot," Albano said of Smith. "The biggest thing was reading the ball inside out and hitting it to right. That's what I worked on all off-season. I made my swing a lot more nice and easy this year. I lifted a lot more in the off-season, so I really didn't need to swing as hard anymore."
Of Albano's 16 home runs this year, 9 were hit to right field or right-center.
"Kids like Ben, that's why you coach," former Jacobs coach Eric Sanders said of his best hitter. "It's really an honor to work with kids like that. He has great parents that are really, really supportive of what he's doing, supportive of the big picture as far as the program. I think Ben understood what an opportunity it was to work with someone like Kirby Smith. He was one of the kids that recognized what that meant and he grasped onto it, which helped him and helped us as a team."
Jarvis, an 18-year-old from Elgin, hit 6 home runs as a sophomore and 6 as a junior. Last summer he split time with the Long Grove A's travel team, coached by Chicago Bulls announcer Stacey King, and Elgin American Legion Post 57.
Over the winter Jarvis took batting practice four times a week with sophomore Tanner Scott in an indoor batting cage set up in a heated shed at the Scott residence. Entering his third varsity season, he felt ready mentally and physically to produce a big year.
"I had a better understanding of what pitches I was going to see," Jarvis said. "I was more mentally tough at the plate, not swinging at pitches I shouldn't that used to get me in trouble. I think it's just from repetition, being sharp from all the practice I put in."
Jarvis was driven for another reason, his coach said.
"Even though he'd had two good years on varsity, he felt like he still had something to prove with being unsigned and everything," Rockets coach Kyle Nelson said. "I think that was a pretty good motivation for him going through the year. He took that into practice and worked hard."
Though the players don't know each other, they knew of each other due to the publicity surrounding the home run and RBI record chases.
"Some of the guys on my team and in my school would joke around and say, 'What are you doing? (Albano's) beating you.' But I really didn't pay attention to it."
"My parents (Glen and Lorrie) were a lot more into it than me," Albano said. "They were looking it up to see if (Jarvis) was going to break the record or not there at the end."
The two standouts ended up splitting the two major batting records. Jarvis set the area's new RBI mark, Albano the home run record. Both have bright futures, though it isn't guaranteed where each will play next season.
Jarvis is considering Elgin Community College, where several of his Post 57 teammates already play and continue to lobby for him to join them. He said he's leaning toward ECC, but he has been contacted recently about scholarship offers from Bradley and Wisconsin-Milwaukee and plans to visit both campuses in the coming weeks.
Albano committed to Luther College in Iowa, but he has recently been contacted by other schools, including one Big Ten program, where a roster spot may soon open if one or more players signs a professional contract in the wake of this week's MLB first-year player draft.
Whichever college programs land one of the sluggers had better have a good scoreboard operator. In either case, a run-producing record-breaking hitter is coming to campus.
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<h2>Related documents</h2>
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<li><a href="/pdf/foxbaseballfront10.pdf">Fox Valley all-area team Page 1</a></li>
<li><a href="/pdf/foxbaseballteam110.pdf">Fox Valley all-area team Page 2</a></li>
<li><a href="/pdf/foxbaseballteam210.pdf">Fox Valley all-area team Page 3</a></li>
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