Sweet 200-win treat for Grayslake Central’s Whalen

With a giant Grayslake Central Ram in green frosting stretched across the middle, and baseballs in round mounds of white frosting sitting in the corners, the sheet cake was dressed to impress.

It was a fitting tribute for an impressive milestone.

Over spring break last month while his team was competing in the Disney Wide World of Sports tournament in Orlando, Grayslake Central baseball coach Troy Whalen picked up the 200th win of his 10-year career.

As soon as Grayslake Central secured its victory over Sidwell High School, which is located in the Washington D. C. area, Whalen got the VIP treatment. The parents of his players not only presented him with the cake, they also snapped pictures and made sure that Whalen got to keep the game ball.

“It was a great moment,” said Whalen, who insisted on getting a picture with Brian Karol and Christian Edwards, the pitchers of record against Sidwell. “The things that our parents do and always have done for me and this entire program over the years are above and beyond. It’s a real family atmosphere here. We’re all part of one big baseball family.”

Whalen points out that the most important part of Grayslake Central’s baseball family is its players. He says he lucked into his position just as the program was hitting an upswing in talent.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about the players,” Whalen said. “You have to have good players and we’ve had that here. We ask our players to do so much, on the field and off, and they do it. We’ve had some special players.”

Whalen, who has seen more than 40 of his players go on to play college baseball, helped sow the seeds.

When he was hired as coach in 2003, Whalen had never been a head coach at the high school level before. He earned his stripes helping to develop the youth feeder programs in the community.

To be sitting pretty a decade later averaging 20 wins a season still doesn’t always register with Whalen.

“Yeah, I’m pretty much living on a dream, really,” Whalen chuckled. “When you get to a point like this, you kind of get reflective and I’ve been thinking a lot about how timing is everything and how I happened to get involved at just the right time. Grayslake baseball was on the upswing through the feeder programs right as I was coming on, and it’s been a great ride ever since.”

Under Whalen, Grayslake Central has won three Fox Valley Conference titles, 3 regional titles, 2 sectional titles and a supersectional in 2009 that led to a third-place finish downstate in the Class 3A finals.

Along the way, there have been the extra special wins, like Whalen’s first ever, which came in extra innings against Zion-Benton. The Rams had another memorable win against Zion-Benton the next year in the regionals. A couple of years later in 2006, Grayslake Central upset Carmel in the sectional and then a few years after that made its magical run downstate with a come-from-behind victory over Nazareth in the supersectional.

“Those are the ones that really stick out off the top of my head,” Whalen said. “But there have been a lot of great wins and a lot of great moments. Reaching this milestone is a credit to all the kids who have played in this program.”

Many of those kids and their families were among the first responders when Whalen and his family met its darkest hour.

In the fall of 2010, the Whalen’s house was destroyed by a fire.

“A lot of people in the community reached out and we were so grateful for that,” Whalen said. “But it was the baseball community that was there first and that meant a lot. They’re family to us. They always will be.”

Baseball buddies:

Someone did the math recently and it’s believed that Grayslake Central seniors Nick Hosford and Ryan Hamrick have played at least 500 baseball games together, if not more.

The two joined forces in grade school and have played on the same team ever since. And this season, they’ve teamed up to give the Rams a forceful punch at the top of the order.

Hamrick, the No. 2 hitter, leads the team with a .475 batting average while Hosford is maintaining a .395 clip from the leadoff spot.

“Those two have so much fun together and they kind of just feed off of each other,” Grayslake Central coach Troy Whalen said. “They kind of set the stage for our other guys.”

Bat man:

So who says the BBCOR bats are less powerful?

Grayslake Central shortstop Ryan Fontana is all of 5-foot-6. Yet, the junior blasted a 2-run homer against Huntley recently.

“And it was into the wind,” Grayslake Central coach Troy Whalen said. “BBCOR bat or not, he got some power behind that. Ryan is hitting .385 and has been on fire for us.

“He’s also doing a great job at short for us. We’ve had some really good shortstops at Grayslake Central over the years and he’s just picking up where they left off.”