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Baseball: Racking up the Ks, Rojahn, Singsank have Elk Grove winning

It's a 1-2 punch that has been producing a lot of "Three strikes, you're out."

One of the biggest keys to Elk Grove's successful start in Mid-Suburban League baseball action is the play of top pitchers Xander Rojahn and Ryne Singsank.

The two seniors are piling up the strikeouts as the Grens have rolled out to a 7-2 record in conference games, good for first place in the MSL East Division.

Singsank, a 6-foot-8 left-hander, has piled up 53 strikeouts over 32 innings while Rojahn, a hard-throwing righty who tops out in the upper 80s, is already at 44 strikeouts over 22 innings.

"Those two guys are really racking up the strikeouts," said Elk Grove coach Terry Beyna, whose team is 10-8 overall. "They are probably the biggest story of our season. They are a really good 1-2 punch for us."

Beyna knows good 1-2 punches.

He says that Rojahn and Singsank remind him of two pitchers Elk Grove had in 2006 that helped pave the way to a deep run in the state playoffs.

Will Osmanski was the tall kid, a 6-foot-6 right-hander, and Ryan Copeland was the left-hander. Copeland went on to pitch at Illinois State and Osmanski pitched at Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

"We really rode those two that season and to have two guys again like that is big," Beyna said. "These two (Rojahn and Singsank) have the potential to make that kind of (state playoff) run, too."

Singsank, who will be pitching at Southern Illinois next year, is 5-1 on the season and 3-0 in MSL games. He carries an impressive 1.31 earned run average.

Rojahn will be pitching at Xavier next year and has been impressive despite battling some injuries.

"Getting off to a good start in the conference, you can see that the kids' confidence has grown," Beyna said. "We had a big win against Fremd on the road. We are playing pretty well right now and having success in the conference."

Elk Grove is targeting another MSL title. The Grens last won the championship in 2016, the third of three straight MSL titles.

The 400 club: Offensively, Elk Grove has gotten solid production out of juniors Zach Schwartz and Shane Crimmins. Both are flirting with membership in the .400 club.

In MSL games, Crimmins, an infielder for the Grens, is hitting right at .400. And Schwartz, the team's lefty catcher, leads the team with an overall batting average of .397. He also has a team-leading 18 RBI.

"Zach is just really aggressive at the plate," Elk Grove coach Terry Beyna said. "He comes up with a lot of big hits for us. And Shane has been giving us great production."

Sweeping success: Part of the reason that Barrington entered the week with a slim lead in the rugged Mid-Suburban League West Division is its big sweep over rival Fremd.

Barrington sits atop the standings at 7-2 while Fremd is 6-3.

"Fremd is dangerous, one of the best teams we've faced this season," said Barrington coach Pat Wire, whose team was 18-5 as of Tuesday. "Their lineup is good from top to bottom and they were scorching hot when they played us, but we got the sweep because they ran into two hot pitchers."

Barrington junior pitchers Nate Holler and R.J. Nowicki each got decisive victories over Fremd. Nowicki earned a 4-0 shutout in which he had 6 strikeouts to just 1 walk. Holler had an eye-popping 11 strikeouts to no walks in his 6-2 win.

Both Holler and Nowicki have been impossible to crack this season, each with 6-0 records on the mound.

"They're both having great seasons, but they are both very different," Wire said. "R.J is a crafty lefty and Nate is a strikeout righty. But the most important thing is that both of them have great command."

Interestingly, both Holler and Nowicki were up on varsity last year as sophomores, but not as starters. Wire used both of his young horses as relievers or closers, but in a way that featured them and their talents.

"We knew those two were good, but last year, we kind of used the Tampa Bay Rays idea of pitching where we would come up with a starter who could be steady, give us three to four good innings and get us to the end of the game where we could hand the ball of to R.J and Nate. We couldn't wait to get to the end of games because then we could put in R. J. or Nate. We knew that if could be in a game late, that we would have a great chance of winning with those two because they are good at pitching in pressure situations."

Last year, Holler was 3-0 with 7 saves and Nowicki was 5-1 with 2 saves.

"I think it was a great role for them last year," Wire said. "They got to prove that they belonged as sophomores, and they played an important role for us in closing out games. There was so much value with them playing on the back end of games for us."

Now on the front end as starters, Holler and Nowicki have transitioned seamlessly.

"They've made a great transition," Wire said. "From closers to starters, they're in a totally different position and they are doing well."

A big hit: It's hard to know what is the most impressive part of Clark Elliott's game.

The Barrington senior is putting up big numbers at the plate this season.

"He is our engine on offense," Barrington coach Pat Wire said. "He's one of the best pure hitters I've ever coached. He can really hit."

Elliott boasts a .446 batting average and has 5 home runs. He's struck out only 3 times in 88 plate appearances. He was named Barrington's hitter of the year last year by teammates and looks to be headed down that road again this year before he moves on to play next year at Michigan.

"But another really impressive thing about Clark is his ability to play anywhere," Wire said of Elliott, who was brought up to varsity as a sophomore. "He was at third base as a sophomore, shortstop and second base this year and I moved him out to center field this year so that we could work in some other combinations of infielders and he's been awesome with it. He's not only showing his versatility. He's showing great character.

"Here's this kid who is all-conference and going to Michigan and we asked him to go into the outfield this year. It speaks volumes about his character that all he wants to do is help the team."

Hot streaks...and not: St. Viator started the season with a scorching 6-0 record, and was then 8-1.

But of late, the Lions haven't been quite so hot.

"Well, we've been on a four-game losing streak," St. Viator coach Mike Manno said. "We've played some really good teams and our conference (East Suburban Catholic Conference) is really tough. But it's also that our inexperience with this group has shown a little bit.

"To turn the corner, we just need to learn from those experiences going against some of the top pitchers in the state."

So just how good is the East Suburban Catholic Conference this year? About as good as it is in any given year. Pretty darn good.

"I'd say that there are at least 40 kids in the conference who will play in college next year and of those 40, more than 20 of them will go Division I," Manno said. "Last year, we had 49 kids in the East Suburban play in college."

St. Viator has two top tier Division I players in Jack Mahoney and Casey Kmet, who will be playing next year at South Carolina and Notre Dame respectively.

Perhaps the most elite player of the conference is outfielder Jason Hodges of Marist. He was the ESCC player of the year last year as a junior and Manno thinks he could get drafted in the first 10 rounds of the Major League Baseball draft.

Meanwhile, left-handed pitcher Michael Prosecky of Nazareth, who is a Louisville commit and hitting the mid-90s, has a handful of pro scouts at all of his games.

"It's just such a talented conference with some really talented players and I always tell the kids that even when we are going through some tough times like we are now, the competition of our conference is really getting us ready for the postseason. We won't see many teams in the playoffs that are anything like what we've seen in the conference."

Familiar face: It was a surreal experience for St. Viator coach Mike Manno to coach against one of his own.

When the Lions faced Stevenson last week, Manno's counterpart was Nick Skala. Skala played for Manno at St. Viator in the late 2000s. It was the first time Manno has ever coached against one of his former players.

"That was really special to me," Manno said. "Nick was on one of my first teams at St. Viator. He was on varsity with me for three years. He was one of the most talented catchers I have ever been around."

Skala went on to play baseball at Concordia for Adam Smith, a childhood friend of Manno. Smith, now the head coach at Benedictine, arranged for St. Viator to play Stevenson in a special game under the lights at Benedictine.

Stevenson won the game, 7-2.

"At first, I was thinking, 'I can't lose to Nick,'" Manno said with a laugh. "But when it was over, I realized that I was just so happy for Nick and his team. They deserved to win and it was such a neat moment to see a kid I coached, who is just 28 or 29 years old, living out his dream. I felt like a proud dad."

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