Warren's Falish gets it right for senior year - and beyond

A year ago, Jake Falish was tormented. Absolutely tortured.

He was full of regret, kicking himself and beating himself up for making what he thought was the worst decision of his young life.

Falish, a senior at Warren, decided last fall not to go out for the basketball team. He had played basketball since grade school, with many of the same kids, his best friends. Basketball had always been his top sport. He absolutely loved the game, and was pretty good at it, too.

But he was pretty good at baseball, too. So good, in fact, that he was getting feedback that led him to believe that baseball would be his ticket to college.

"So I thought I'd better start focusing more on baseball. I thought it would be good to spend last winter working on my game and lifting to get bigger," said Falish, a middle infielder. "I didn't even go to basketball tryouts. And I regretted it as soon as I did it.

"I only went to two basketball games last year. You have no idea how hard that was for me. I just couldn't sit there in the stands watching my friends play without me. It was so hard, I couldn't stand it. I just kept thinking about how I made the wrong choice."

It's funny how life often has a way of working itself out.

Falish returned to the basketball team this season, which has been a blessing for the Blue Devils. He's the team's leading scorer (20 points per game) and is one of the top 3-point shooters in the area.

It took him less than a New York minute to make his decision once baseball season ended last spring.

Over the summer, he was back to playing basketball games with his teammates, in summer leagues and in various tournaments.

At a tournament in West Aurora, Falish, a 3-point sharpshooter, put together two big games, back-to-back. The next thing he knew, he had a letter in his mailbox from Marian University, a Division III school in Fond du Lac, Wis.

It was from the men's basketball team there.

Falish took a double-take. As it turned out, he was already being recruited by Marian for baseball. Why would he be getting a letter from the basketball team?

"I thought it was a mistake," Falish said. "I hadn't really played basketball since my sophomore year. But I had those two good games and the coach at Marian saw them and he sent me that letter.

"I emailed him and told him, 'I just want to let you know that I'm being recruited by your baseball team.' "

Turns out, that went over extremely well at Marian.

The baseball and basketball coaches there are best friends and decided that they'd love to share Falish, so they each continued recruiting him.

Falish committed to Marian last week … to play both basketball and baseball there.

"It's crazy, just surreal that this is happening," Falish said. "I never had any clue that I could play college basketball. I had never envisioned that, especially since I missed all of last season.

"I didn't even know how well I'd be able to play high school basketball. At the beginning of this season, I was kind of thinking that maybe I could be the sixth man, someone we could bring in if we needed a 3-pointer late in the game or something."

Funny. Falish has rarely come off the floor this season the Blue Devils. In fact, he's got entire defenses focused on him. And for good reason.

He's had multiple games of huge outbursts from 3-point range. Against Zion-Benton earlier this season, Falish went off for a career-high 31 points. He canned a career-high nine 3-pointers in that game, scoring the first 15 points of the game on 5 straight 3-pointers.

His breakout game was a 26-point explosion against Lakes at the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament.

In a game against Lake Forest on Tuesday, Falish was hounded by the defense all night.

"Here's a kid who played baseball last year and you've got a Lake Forest team that is 21-1 putting a box-and-one on him," Warren coach Ryan Webber said of Falish. "Jake is a really good shooter. He's had a great season and we're really glad he came back to us."

Falish's teammates begged him not to skip last season. They knew they'd be missing an important piece of the puzzle without him.

"Jake is a great player. I was telling him every time I saw him last year, 'Man, I wish you were going to be on the team. I wish you were here.' He would have helped us a lot," Warren senior forward Caleb Reams said. "We were definitely on him right away to play this year and he was like, 'Dude, I am for sure.'

"And now, he's playing again and it's been great. He's playing his game. That's what he's always been doing his whole life, he's always been that really good shooter. He makes shots that are like video game shots. We compare him to Steph Curry (Golden State Warriors) because he makes shots that you don't think would go in."

Falish is amazed himself, in terms of the direction of his career.

"I'm having a season unlike anything I could ever think of, especially after last year," Falish said. "My teammates and coaches have been so supportive and I'm just so happy that I've been able to contribute the way I have. And now, I'm going to keep playing both sports in college.

"I never imagined something like this could happen to me."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

Follow Patricia on Twitter: @babcockmcgraw