Local players' success in college

Pitch,

Thanks for the good news. Rick is a great kid. How did you get this information? It's not on their web-sight yet.

Sdawg...I listened to the broadcast of the game on the Mizzou radio sation over the internet. I also spoke to Rick's younger brother.

OPRF’s Ian Berger made his Mizzou debut as well pitching the 8th inning of this game, facing 3, ground to 3B, a K, and a FO to LF. Well done Cheeze!

great to hear Ian got off to a good start at Mizzou. Sometimes its tough to get going at a new school but I knew Ian would do just fine. Great kid and a great teammate to play with

Palatine's Aaron Newman, 3 hits in the season opening win over Texas Tech.

My nephew, Luke Stewart(Normal West High School), opened his college career this weekend as Georgia lost three to Oregon State. He is starting at third base for Georgia. He got his first hit in Saturday's game, a homerun off the scoreboard. 2 for 3 on Sunday, a single and a double. Three for 10 on the weekend with 2 walks, 2 RBI's.

Uncle Kevin

Small world out there!

Aaron and Ruairi are ex-travel team mates and good friends.

Luke Stewarts Dad coached Ruairi's brother Patrick at ISU.

Good luck to Aaron and Luke!

Congrats to all of the college kids who have had a nice start...especially the kid from OPRF.

Go Georgia Dogs. I'll be in Athens in 2 weeks and am planning to attend Winthrop vs Georgia. Saw my first SEC game a couple years ago at Foley field when Alabama was in town. The Georgia kids (fans) ragged on the Alabama players, showing no mercy. It was brutal. Is ragging on the visiting team a Georgia, SEC or South thing? Or is it prevelant in all the conferances? Is ragging part of the college game?

Tuzi,

I was at the opening round of the NCAA regionals in Atlanta the year before last to watch Georgia Tech(ACC) play Jacksonville State and I don't recall the players or fans doing a lot of bench jockeying or ragging at that game. Maybe it depends on the team they are playing or the rivalary involved. Also, I have never noticed that at any of the Northwestern games that I have attended in recent years.

Tuzi...

Say hello to Coach Joe Hudak at Winthrop for me. He recruited my son Paul Petrulis for Mississippi State when Joe was a recruiting coordinator in the late '80's/early '90's.

Best fans in the country are at Mississippi State. They "adopt" the visiting team players and usually "treat" them to a meal in the Left Field Lounge. Go to Starkville on any SEC weekend, but especially when the football team is having its spring game. 10-15 thousand fans at the Saturday game.

Beenthere IL,

You have 5 OPRF players to root for from 05 alone!

Berger @ Mizzou
Froelich @ Coastal Carolina
McFolling @ Villanova
O'Connor @ Florida State
Dennehy @ Gilbert Chapman

All 5 appear to be heavily involved in 07.

Downstate Washington product Grant Escue has started four of Stanford's first seven games as DH. He's in a little bit of a funk, (3 for 12), but knowing Grant, he'll get it worked out.
After all, he batted .422 over the final 15 games last season and helped the Cardinal to a Super Regional against Oregon State.

Congrats to Louie Johanns making his opening day college debut at 3B for SIU...

I am hearing that Billy Boockford will be making his debut in right field come Sat for the Irish..

Brandon Copp gets game two for NIU at Texas Tech next week.....

Nice job!

Latest on Chris Friedrich 2005 Loyola Grad


Friedrich Earns Another Preseason Honor

Sophomore Christian Friedrich
RICHMOND, Ky. -Eastern Kentucky University sophomore starting pitcher Christian Friedrich was recently named a preseason All-American in the latest issue of Street and Smith Magazine.

This is just the latest honor for the 6-3 southpaw who was recently selected a NCBWA and Louisville Slugger third team All-American in addition to being one of 120 players named to the 2007 Wallace Watch list, given annually to the Division I baseball Player of the Year. He was also one of 62 pitchers named to the preseason watch list for the fourth annual Roger Clemens Award. The Clemens award is presented annually to the best pitcher in college baseball.

The 2006 Freshman All-American went 10-2 in his first year at Eastern and led the conference in ERA (1.98) and strike outs per game (13), with the latter mark ranking second in the nation. The 2006 OVC Freshman of the Year and first-team All-OVC selection struck out 118 batters in 82.0 innings and held opponents to a .204 batting average. Friedrich also hurled the fifth no-hitter in school history and first since 1992 on March 26 against Morehead State.

Friedrich was named a top prospect by Baseball America after going 2-0 with a 1.41 ERA this summer for the Vermont Mountaineers of the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). The magazine named its top 10 prospects in 17 collegiate summer leagues.

The Evanston, Ill. native allowed only 17 hits and had a strikeout to walk ratio of 36-5 this summer in 32 innings. Friedrich also struck out 12 batters in 6.0 innings to lead the Mountaineers to the NECBL title with a 4-1 victory over the Torrington Twisters on August 10.



Word from Elvis Dominguez, EKU Skipper, is that Chris will be on Team USA this summer at the Pan Am Games! I guess the Cape will have to wait!!!!!

Keep her going Chris, you are on you way!!!!!

Steve Crnkovich college debutwith UIC Flames against Oky State Sunday, 2runs in 5 innings with 5 k's. No decision

atta Boy!!

Deucedoc,

Great job for a 2006 DGS Mustang alumni. Steve is such a nice young man who I have known and enjoyed watching get better year after year. I will remember watching him and my oldest son dominate a fall league as youngsters. Steve was always a great thrower but became a special talent when you had the opportunity to teach him how to pitch.

Patrick Keating from Harrisburg now at Florida threw three scoreless innings with 2 k's and 1 hit allowed vs. VMI.

Tyler Choate from Carmi now at SIU is 3-10 on the season and has 2 k's in one IP so far.

Andrew Dunn from Marion now at John A. Logan gave up 1 run in 6ip for a win.

Cody Dunbar from Herrin now at TCU gave up 1 run and had 5 k's in 3 1/3 inn. this past week.

UIC beat Georgia Tech 11 to 4.

Local boys….

Downers Grove South’s Steve Crnkovich pitched 5 inning of relief giving up 6 hits, 1 run, striking out 4, getting the win.

Mt. Carmel’s David Cales pitched the final inning 1-2-3, striking out 2 closing the door on GT.

Brother Rice’s Brett Schaefer got the juices flowing putting the Flames on the board going YARD in the 6th.

Marion Catholic’s Jake Carr drove in 2 (RBIs) with 2 outs in the 9th to tie the game.

Sandburg’s Mike Kaffel and Coal City’s Ben Trotter stepped up and drove in 2 more insurance runs in the 9th.

Not so local boys…

Ryan Zink starting pitcher, come back player of the game….

Larry Gempp went 3 for 5, 2 RBI’s scoring 2 runs, the 2 RBIs were to go ahead 6-4 in the top of the 9th and Nick Rainwater, another son of Wisconsin, 2 for 5 scoring the tying run.

Lots of good ol’ Midwestern HEART! Great win after a sloppy 11-2 loss the previous day… It’s not what you do… it’s what you do next.

WELL DONE MEN! Congrats! Watched both games on ACCSelect… This is baseball!

My apologies if I missed anyone…. This was a TEAM win!

quote:

Marion Catholic’s Jake Carr drove in 2 (RBIs) with 2 outs in the 9th to tie the game.

Smokey...A ground ball to the shortstop with 2 outs in the top of the 9th, which goes through the shortstops legs for an error, does not give you 2 rbi's.

I'll give Mike Dee credit, he's not afraid to play with the big boys.

Whaddaya smokin smokey?????

So, John- You WERE watching!

Always, Stick.

Nice start for stuff, too.

Patrick Keating (Florida)from Harrisburg picked up his first career win against the 5th ranked Miami Hurricanes on Saturday in relief. He is now 1-0 with a 3.18 era in two games of work.

how about those florida NATIONAL CHAMPION UNIVERSITY gators................. timmy tebow watch out!

Norwood Blues alumni Ryan Anetsberger, Kevin Dubler, and Gabe DeMarco accounted for 6 of illinois state's 7 hits sunday. They each collected 2 hits vs. #7 Nebraska sunday. Isu lost 7-3

Dubler had a great weekend with his first homer of the season as well.

Brian Schlitter gat the victory in the College of Charleston's opener.

Matt McFolling batting in the 2 hole for Villanova.

.364 with a Home run.

OPRF 2005.

BennthereIL,

To me it looked like the ball took a bad hop over his shoulder and went into LF. The ACCSelect announcers confirmed the bad hoop and added that UIC’s Rainwater blocked GT’s Fisher’s view, running from 2B to 3B. It looked to me that GT’s SS, Fisher, didn’t touch the ball. The ACCSelect announcers did not state that an error was attributed to Fisher… didn’t realize it until I went back, after reading your response to my post, and read the box score that they scored, what I thought a Carr hit, an error. It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong and sure won’t be the last. Bottom line… UIC battled back in the top of the 9th, down 2 runs, and put up 9 runs to take the game from a very good GT team. When Carr came to bat bags were juiced with 2 outs and hit the ball hard. UIC created their own luck. Error or not it doesn’t take away from a bunch of local (and not so local) kids beating a very good ACC team.

Looks like Matt McFolling has gotten off to a great start… goin’ yard… Matt you’re a mad man!

OPRF Represent!

quote:

Smokey Quote:
UIC’s Rainwater blocked GT’s Fisher’s view

That was the way I saw it also. Some will say that's instinct but I would say that it is also good coaching behind those moves, another one that no one will see in the box was David Cales deeking ia runner going on a hit and run where the ball was caught by the RF and thrown to first for a DP, another a sucussful double steal on Sunday. Sometimes it's not always the score at the end of the game that tells what a team is made of, but rather an accumulation of the events and what was learned from them. UIC could have laid down after the ugly Fri loss, instead they came to play the next two. IMHO

Ok, ok, we used to be locals! History lesson- Moved out to the sticks in 1995 (Jr was in 6th grade) from Cicero. I graduated from Riverside- Brookfield and husband (pitcher) from Morton East. My parents were from OPRF and Fenwick- We'll always be locals!!!

Brad Altbach-freshman pitcher at Bradley University (Glenbrook North) on Sunday vs. Belmont University...3 innings, 3 k's, 0 bb's, 1 hit, 1 earned run. Nice job Brad. Keep it up.

Forgot to mention, Ramie Hamdan-Freshman pitcher at Bradley (Shepard High School), Saturday against Belmont University, 1 inning, 1 walk, 0 hits, 0 runs...nice start to your college career Ramie.

quote:

Stickwatcher quote:
We'll always be locals!!!

As far as I'm concerned you live close enough to WI that we will claim you if no one else will.

Jason Kipnis Kentucky (Glenbrook North) SEC Player of the week!

There is another honor for Jason Kipnis and here are the details of the week that he had. (from the Kentucky Website).

"Freshman Jason Kipnis was named the National Freshman of the Week by Collegebaseball.rivals.com, the website announced Monday.

Kipnis, who earlier Monday was named Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week, had a monster weekend in UK’s three-game sweep of Furman. The redshirt freshman outfielder batted 5-for-9 with seven runs scored, two home runs, and four RBI. The highlight of his weekend came when he ripped his first two career home runs as part of the Wildcats nine-run sixth inning on Saturday. Kipnis was also hit by three pitches and drew a walk, good for a .643 on-base percentage."

Someone can correct me if they know differently, but I believe that Jason never played summer baseball with any elite or special travel team. As far as I know he only played with the Northbrook house league all-star team in the North Shore League after the house league season was over. The only somewhat high level of travel ball that he ever played (during his junior and senior year) was with the Northbrook Braves legion team. Just wanted to relate this for those on the website who believe that you have to play with a good or elite travel team from the age of 10-12 to be successful.

Way to go Jason!!

Congrats Jason...I know his family...really nice people...I am so happy for all of them.

soxnole,

Where's Gilbert Chapman?

Thanks.

Dennehy goes to Chandler-Gilbert in AZ. I was down in Mesa to watch some baseball last week and heard good things about him and the Chandler-Gilbert team.