Monday, April 29, 2013

Crunch Time

Class of 2015 Power Ratings

I re-evaluated some teams and conferences this week and updated my class of 2015 power rankings. These rankings are based upon various factors which include the strength of conferences, won and lost record. I also consider the effort placed in non-conference games.

1. Providence

2. Nequa Valley

3. Batavia

4. Sandberg

5. Benet Academy

6. York

7. Lockport

8. St. Laurence

9. Bradley

10. Lyons

11. Wheaton Academy

12. St. Rita

13. Oak Park

14. St. Frances

15. Downers Grove South

16. Mount Carmel

17. Lincoln Way North

18. Edwardsville

19. Willowbrook

20. Lincoln Way West

21. Libertyville

22. Glenbrook North

23. Brother Rice

24. Deerfield

25. Jacobs

Crunch Time

The stage is set for a West Suburban Athletic Conference showdown between the York Dukes and Lyons Township. Each team enters today’s game with two losses. York lost a 6 – 5 game to Downers Grove North and then swept Proviso West and Glenbard West. They took an old fashion tail beating against Oak Park River Forest when Ryan Fish put ice on the Dukes’ hot bats. In an 11 – 0 rout by the former year Freshman A team WSC champs, the Dukes could only hope that they would not slip to third place in their division as they did during their freshmen year. They bounced back and won the next two games against the Huskies, but they found themselves one game behind Lyons.

This weekend, however, gave hope to the Dukes when the Oak Park River Forest Huskies split the double header with Lyons. In what seemed like a one man show, Jack Stannard pitched and hit his way to a 3 – 1 victory in the second game of the double header. After losing the first game 7 – 4, the Huskies hopes of a championship became bleak. They needed a win just to have a mathematical chance. Lyons nearly crushed all hopes for the Huskies during the first game when they broke a 4 – 4 tie in the sixth inning with three runs.

Oak Park River Forest is all but guaranteed a third place finish getting help from an unlikely rival in Glenbard West. After a home-run to left field by Arno Curtis, the Hilltoppers’ motivation inspired them to a remarkable seventh inning win as Freshman Jake Rosely scored on an error for the game winning run and upset. The score was tied in the bottom of the seventh inning when Rosely singled and was pushed over by a sacrifice bunt from Lunkins. Then Curtis had another timely hit with a single to left that pushed Rosely to third. An untimely error by the pitcher cost the Trojans the game.

But it was the Downers Grove North Trjans that helped the York Dukes by defeating Lyons in the third and final game of their series. Unfortunately, the Trojans do not have enough pitching for them to have consistent play and they have invariably lost games that were well within their reach to win.

Just as dramatic as the West Suburban Athletic Conference is, the South Suburban Conference had surprising games as well. Bradley solidified its dominance over Lincoln Way West with great pitching in a 5 – 1 victory. This second lost to Bradley all but knocks the Warriors out of contention for a conference championship. The Lockport sophomore team had a 10 – 2 record entering the game against Oak Lawn. With a strong pitching staff, it seemed as if the game would be in control for them from start to finish and that was the case until the fourth inning. Lockport took a two run lead into the fourth gave up four. Ironically enough it was Oak Lawn’s pitching that stole the spot light and defeated the first place Porters. Now just one game ahead of Sandberg, Lockport has no more room for error. Their big date with Providence is approaching quickly. They are battle tested now they must go on to glory.

Other games to note

Barrington Harlem	8 9	Benet Academy Marist	12 6 3 9	Grant Antioch	12 0
Batavia St. Charles E.	4 5	Loyola Brother Rice	5 3	Bloom Argo	7 6
Carmel Nazareth	4 5	Glenbard East Naperville North	3 3 4 1	Glenbrook North Evanston	1 0 3 1
Elk Grove Libertyville	4 5 8 3	Bradley Lincoln Way W.	5 1	Lake Park Matea Valley	3 12 6 5
New Trier Deerfield	2 5 4 7	Brother Rice Stagg	5 7	Buffalo Grove Schaumburg	5 1

Batting Leader Board

(Must have a minimum of 25 at bats)

Name AB AVG School

Chris Johnson	29	655	Wheaton Academy
Jabari Morris	25	560	York
Dan Petrou	27	519	Lincoln Way West
Dan Minik	31	484	Benet Academy
Tanner Phillips	32	469	Wheaton Academy
Nolan Spencer	44	455	York
Josh Crosby	25	440	Benet Academy
Evan Plonis	30	433	Benet Academy
Garrett Acton	63	429	Brother Rice
Ryan Fish	35	429	Oak Park River Forest
Brian Peterson	35	429	York
Mat Fitzgerald	26	429	Matea Valley
Ben Manski	41	415	Libertyville

Train and Improve your skills

Lou Collier is a former professional baseball player living in the Southern Chicago Suburbs. He trains and mentors many young baseball players. Follow this link to learn more. www.Loucollierbaseball.com

Larry Cicchiello’s training books and CDs are great training tools for coaches and players. www.Larrybaseball.com

BARNSTORMERS baseball camps contact Karl at

Karl@barnstormersbaseball

http://top96.scoutware.net/base/cgi/viewMail.pl?i=M1512080801_14364256

13th Annual New England Catching Camp Summer Camp

Jason Weaver
Director of Operations
New England Catching Camp, LLC
Jay@catchingcamp.com

Player recruiting links

Jabari Morris: www.jabaribaseball.com

Connor Lovely: www.elitebaseballtraining.com/rosters/connor-lovely/

INTERNATIONAL BASEBALL

Play baseball in The Dominica Republic or in Japan with Caliendo Sports International.

Amateur Baseball Report conducts scouting camps and creates teams for games in Italy. Contact Brian Wabick 708-675-1500 X 113

Friday, April 26, 2013

Class of 2015 Power Ratings

With the high school season reaching the mid-point of competition, teams are starting to look towards their respective conference championships. With that in mind, Statsandblogs has compiled a top 25 list of the best Sophomore teams in the state.

1. Nequa Valley- Impressive wins over Benet and Matea Valley

2. Providence – may be the best all-around team in the state.

3. Lincoln Way North – Impressive win over Lyons

4. Benet Academy – Offence clicked against Nazareth in a blowout win

5. Sandberg – mistake free baseball, good pitching

6. Lyons – pitching staff will be tested against OPRF

7. York – solid hitting throughout the lineup with good speed on the bases.

8. St. Lawrence - Perhaps the only real threat to Providence dominance.

9. Downers Grove South – Very powerful offence that is virtually uncontested in the WSC Gold

10. Naperville Central – May be over-rated with major holes in their defence.

11. Wheaton Academy – As Chris Johnson does the team does

12. St. Rita – The cream is not rising to the top

13. Glenbrook North – Quietly turning heads

14. Oak Park - After dropping 2 games to York, a conference title may be out of the question; they must beat LT.

15. Brother Rice - Building great momentum and poses an outside threat to the Catholic league title.

16. Mount Carmel – After losing a big one to Brother Rice, Carmel may be the whipping boys of the Catholic league.

17. St. Frances Impressive win over Wheaton Academy

18. Lincoln Way West – Rising fast and may be the best overall Lincoln Way team.

19. Edwardsville – Having a cake walk in the south

20. Main South – Beat a good Libertyville team but has bigger challenges ahead.

21. Nazareth – Matthew Flach is the pick to click

22. Matea Valley – Must beat the good teams

23. Lockport – With a rapidly improving conference, Lockport needs more offence to compete for a title

24. New Trier – This team gets better every week. Very exciting team to watch

25. Willow Brook – The only challenge to Downers Grove South in the WSC Gold

This weekend will match some of our top 25 teams. #24 New Trier will face off against #13 Glenbrook North and #6 Lyons try to avoid the upset from #14 Oak Park. Tune in for the weekend round up in the next blog.

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

A Week of Impressive Baseball

The season is underway and is starting to heat up for the class of 2015. Twelve days of rain in fifteen days and somehow we had baseball this weekend. This week we saw Conner Lovely from Matea Valley throw a no hitter, Chris Johnson of Wheaton Academy raise his batting average to 700 and a great pitching performance from Ryan Fish who shut out the York Dukes.

The Roadrunners of Nazareth, to this point, has had the type of season expected of them. The sophomore class ideally led by Brandon Bassar and Matthew Flach found themselves in need for other players to step up as the team leaders started the season very slow at the plate. At one point, Flach had a 0 for 7 streak and lost his spot as a lead-off batter. Fortunately for the Roadrunners, first baseman and pitcher, Donald Kelly stepped up and took on the offensive leadership role. He was supported by second-baseman and pitcher Carson Bartels. In their great play, Donald Kelly’s offensive production moved him to the top of the Statsandblogs batting list as Chris Johnson dropped after reaching a season high batting average of 720. He ran into a very tough St. Francis team and his average dropped by nearly 70 points.

Statsandblog's Sophomore batting leaders

Name School Batting AVG

Donald Kelly	Nazareth	666
Chris Johnson	Wheaton Academy	654
Jabari Morris	York	591
Thad Daniel	Proviso West	583
Brad Rothenberger	Matea Valley	571
Ryan Fish	Oak Park & River Forest	545
Carson Bartles	Nazareth	533
Evan Plonis	Benet	533
Garret Acton	Brother Rice	514
Bobby Mueller	York	500
Ben Manski	Libertyville	500

Earlier this week, in Saint Charles, Connor Lovely pitched 5 scoreless and hitless innings in a 2-0 pitching duel. Lovely pitched for six strikeouts and allowed .4 runners per inning. A member of Justin Stone’s summer elite teams, Lovely will face stiff competition each day that he steps on the mound. To see him hold his own against a good hitting team in Saint Charles East is very encouraging that his future looks promising.

Follow the link www.elitebaseballtraining.com/rosters/connor-lovely/ to see Lovely's recruiting page.

The most noteworthy games this week were

Rolling Meadows Schaumburg	6 7	Argo Bremen	0 1
Oak Park York	11 0	Oak Park York	4 13
Highland Park New Trier	3 0	New Trier Barrington	5 0
Neuqua Valley Matea Valley	7 2	Benet Academy Neuqua Valley	2 3
Brother Rice Mount Carmel	8 5	Lake Zurich Libertyville	0 12
Wheaton Academy St. Frances	1 5	Fremd Glenbrook North	1 8

Larry Cicchiello tip: Baseball Pitchers – if you’re a pitcher and the ball gets away from your catcher and you have to cover the plate, make sure you stand in FRONT of the plate! As an umpire, I see MANY pitchers standing in the path of the oncoming runner. Stand in FRONT of the plate and then get the glove down quickly.

Links

Recruiting Sites

Jabari Morris: www.jabaribaseball.com

Connor Lovely: www.elitebaseballtraining.com/rosters/connor-lovely/

Training and Exposure Links

Amateur Baseball Report

We are opening Scout Day to everybody who wants to attend and not only to participants who are in the Northwestern “Will to Live” Tournament

Contact

Brian Wabick

Amateur Baseball Report

708-675-1500 x 113

Larry Cicchiello’s training books and CD’s are great learning tools for players and coaches. www.Larrybaseball.com

Play International baseball and represent your country

Peter M. Caliendo (President) Caliendo Sports International

Phone: 847-781-8039 Skype: Coachestraining

www.caliendosportsinternational.com

BARNSTORMERS baseball camps contact Karl at

Karl@barnstormersbaseball

http://top96.scoutware.net/base/cgi/viewMail.pl?i=M1512080801_14364256

13th Annual New England Catching Camp Summer Camp

Jason Weaver
Director of Operations
New England Catching Camp, LLC
Jay@catchingcamp.com

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