BASEBALL: Apaches pound out victories
By Nate Bloomquist
Apache Associate Editor
The IVCC men’s baseball team is knocking the cover off the ball and the socks off of its opponents.
Through 47 games, every one of the Apaches’ regular starting nine has a batting average of .300 or better.
“We’re like the White Sox,” said IVCC head coach Bob Koopman. “We’re just really hitting the ball well. Garret Dinges has seven homers and he’s batting seventh. That just shows how well we can hit the ball.”
Joe Sester single-handedly showed how much of an impact his team’s offense can make. The Mendota High School graduate went 8-for-9 with three doubles and five home runs, and 13 RBIs on April 14 in a doubleheader against McHenry College in Crystal Lake. Sester currently has 12 homers which is amongst the leaders in the nation. He has 65 RBIs, which puts him at second in the nation.
But despite Sester’s slugfest, the Apaches (32-15, 9-1 in the Arrowhead Conference) split the doubleheader. Which also shows how important pitching is to squad.Sophomore Brian Lewis, is considered the team’s ace despite his 4-5 record. He has a 2.45 ERA and is fifth in the nation in strikeouts. Tim Breuning, who like Lewis, is also a lefty, has a 6-1 record.
“He’s won the big games for us,” said Koopman. “But when it came down to it, I’d want the ball in Lewis’ hands. He’s much better than his record shows.”
In recent games, IVCC downed Elgin 11-2 on April 16, swept a twin-billing against Prairie State (15-1, 14-0). The Apaches split a doubleheader with conference champ Kishwaukee on Saturday. IVCC lost the first game 8-0, but came back to win the second game.
The Apaches committed a season-high 10 errors in the first game, but only made one miscue in the second game.
“We have to be consistant and that’s our biggest problem now heading into the postseason,” said the IVCC baseball coach. “We can’t be sporadic. We just can’t do things like that (commit 10 errors in a game). That’s why I’ve got gray hairs coming in.”
With the split against Kishwaukee, IVCC finished second place in the Arrowhead Conference. Koopman said he wasn’t surprised with the strong showing.
“I thought it would be really competitive and it was,” he said. “I think this conference is tougher than the N4C (the conference IVCC was in last season). We really did well against the good teams in this conference this year.”
The Apaches will get another crack at Kishwaukee and the rest of the Arrowhead Conference on April 28-30 in the conference tournament.
IVCC has already broken last year’s school record of 27 wins and is rapidly approaching the 40-mark. Koopman said that plateau isn’t out of the question.
“When we were 7-7 we had a player meeting,” said the IVCC coach. “The players all said they wanted to win 37 games. It doesn’t seem like that’d be too hard to do now. And I think we might even win 40 games.”