Streamwood names Lasota new coach

Ryan Lasota has been named Streamwood’s next baseball coach, athletic director Pat Ryan announced Tuesday.

Lasota, 32, recently completed his first season as the school’s sophomore baseball coach. A physical education teacher at Eastview Middle School in Bartlett, he has worked as an assistant or lower-level coach at five high schools over the past eight years.

He replaces seven-year Streamwood coach Steve Diversey, who announced in April he would step down at season’s end.

“Steve did a nice job of building the program up, especially two years ago when they won the sectional and won 30 games,” Lasota said. “The main goal is to get back where they were two years ago. We’ll do that through hard work, working on fundamentals and breaking the program down to ground zero from the freshman level through to varsity.

“The sophomores I coached this year were a great group of coachable kids. They got a lot better from their freshman season by playing hard, which is the way I think the game should be played. It’ll be exciting to have them with the varsity next year.”

Lasota, a Chicago native, pitched for three years at North Park University. He began his coaching career at St. Rita, then spent a year as a volunteer coach at South Elgin. He subsequently spent three seasons at Elgin and one at St. Edward before arriving at Streamwood this year.

“You pick things up from each program,” Lasota said. “I started at St. Rita when they were a nationally ranked program. That’s a good place to get your feet wet.”