Barrington seeking 8th straight MSL West title
Seven has been heaven for Barrington.
The Mid-Suburban West baseball race has gone through Barrington for the past seven seasons. And eight could be great for the Broncos.
With one of the area's top pitchers in Northern Illinois recruit RJ Nowicki, Barrington is poised to make another strong run in 2020.
"The expectations never change for us at Barrington," said coach Pat Wire, whose teams are 180-67-2 and in his eight years as head coach. "We expect to contend for an MSL championship and believe as a program we have unfinished business."
Barrington won its first regional last season under Wire. Although that team graduated Clark Elliot, who is playing at Michigan, the Broncos do return a talented group.
They include Nate Holler, AJ Christoffer, Luke Kozlowski, Tommy Fitzpatrick, Nate Gazda, Johnny Pecora and Adrian Nery. Along with Nowicki, all will play in college. That group was also the core of the American Legion team from last summer that lost in the state title game.
Palatine returns seven starters and 136 innings of pitching this season.
The Pirates are making a bold move with Tyler Pecson, who led the team in innings pitched last season, moving to the closer role. His brother Eric and Shailan Rajpurkar will be the team's top starters.
Luka Popovic, who is a deer in center field, will be a key to the offense. Tyler Pecson, who will also catch, along with shortstop Luke Seiffert, Jack Betz and Joe Bohlmann also look to contribute.
"Player versatility will key spring success," Palatine coach Paul Belo said. "Offensively, patient at bats and situational hitting approaches will supplant what appears to be a shortage of power. Team defense and speed are our strongest attributes."
Fremd has huge holes to fill from a team that advanced to the supersectional a year ago. The Vikings lost seven position players and their top starter, but coach Chris Piggott, who is in his 18th season, said that his team will still be on track to compete for the West title.
"Our guys have been competing hard in practice and are pushing each other," Piggott said. "I love the work ethic and culture of this team. They want to build on what we did last year and they are hungry to prove themselves. I am excited about our potential and look forward to their improvement throughout the year."
Leading the way for the Vikings will be Matt Wingen, Joe Rattin, Ryan Kiolbassa, James Marchi, TJ Davis, Nick Varon, Pano Rokkas, Charlie Towns and Adam Davis.
Conant will be back in its own friendly confines after its baseball field was rebuilt all last season.
The Cougars struggled because of that last season. Conant coach Derek Fivelson said having a home field will be a huge help this year.
"The team gets after it in practice and they enjoy being challenged," said Fivelson, who is in his seventh season. "It's a great bunch of guys who get along well and have fun. We need to feed off each other's energy. We're all excited about having a home field this year. It's been a long time coming and I think the team should naturally improve because of not having to get on a bus every day."
Daniel LaRosa, Noah Hays and Keegan O'Connor, who will all play in college, figure to be keys for the Cougars this season. Nick Anzelone, Ryan Taylor, Luke Shaw, Lukas Kim, Joe Forte and Jake Tsoulos also return and should give Conant depth.
Schaumburg has 20 of its 26 players returning from last season. That should pay dividends for the Saxons and coach Cal Seely.
"Consistency will be key throughout the year," said Seely, who is entering his ninth year as head coach. "We could not find a rhythm last season, so we will be looking to improve in that area and expect more notches in the win column as a result. We have improved a bit every day and look to take that mindset and momentum with us as we enter the regular season."
Schaumburg has its three top hurlers returning in Jack Bahn, Kyle Jansen and Brandon Seider. Bahn will also play short when he is not on the bump. Albert Kiszka will behind the dish while Matt Collier will be at first. Juniors Justin Gadomski and Kevin Schoefernacker could add some power.
Hoffman Estates will be very young this season and has a small varsity roster to deal with. The Hawks graduated 12 seniors last year, including six starters.
"This is going to be a coming of age moment for a lot of our guys," Hoffman Estates coach Andrew Wulbecker said. "We are a young team and everyone is going to need to be ready to contribute right away. As you can see our depth is the shallowest it has been in a while. We're going to learn to get through adversity day in and day out."
The Hawks will be led by Nate Meister, Jeremy Weidner, Patrick McGrath, Hayden Carlson, Andres Castaneda and Will Wojtasiak.