Stevenson playing through challenges

It's happened again.

The bad news keeps piling up at Stevenson. Another top player for the Patriots has gone down with a serious injury.

Left fielder Austin Black, who will be playing at Harvard next season, hurt his shoulder in a recent game. He was out on the base path and dove back into a base and jammed up his shoulder as he hit the bag.

"He won't be playing and his return is unknown. All we do know is that he was in a lot of discomfort when he got hurt," Stevenson coach Paul Mazzuca said of Black. "We tried to DH him (a few days later) and you could just tell his swing wasn't the same.

"This has been a long season so far with injuries."

It's been a season like no other for Mazzuca, now in his seventh season as head coach.

He's never been missing so many players due to injury, all at once. And key players, to boot.

Before the season even started, Stevenson was without three starters. Senior designated hitter Zach Novoselsky is out for the season with leg injury suffered during football season. Junior outfielder Jimmy Marchese is recovering from knee surgery after tearing his ACL during football season and senior shortstop and pitcher Eli Greenspon is out with a travel baseball injury. Greenspon won't return and Marchese is unlikely.

"This has been tough, but obviously, our mindset is to keep working hard and hope that our persistence pays off," Mazzuca said. "We're having to play guys who weren't quite ready to be in this position and who weren't expected to get a lot of varsity time early in the season. But we're hoping they can step up and find some consistency as they gain that experience."

Pitching is positive:

It hasn't been all tough sledding for Stevenson this season.

Pitchers Mitch Goll and LJ Austin have been bright spots.

Austin got a big win over Palatine and should be a good fill-in for Austin Black in the DH spot. Goll got a big win over Loyola early in the season and is settling into the ace role for the Patriots.