BELOIT — It wasn’t quite the renaissance of Beloit Memorial High School baseball Steve Johnson hoped for when he took over as head coach a year ago.
2023 only brought one more victory the Purple Knights’ way as they improved from 2-20 to 3-19. This past spring, they finished 2-16.
Not quite the return to glory days the 67-year-old Johnson experienced when he played on a 1973 Beloit team that went 16-1 and won a Big Eight Conference title. A catcher, he caught future big leaguer Tony Brizzolara and minor leaguers Bob Klein and Gary Hubka.
Johnson said after two seasons as an assistant and two as head coach, he’s retiring.
“My wife just retired and I really want to be able to see my grandson compete,” he said. “It’s tough when his events are at the same time we’re playing. So it’s good timing (to retire).”
There was some empirical evidence of progress by the Knights this past season, such as a team batting average climbing over 70 points (from .191 to .265).
“My first three years we were in the .190s,” Johnson said. “This season we had three or four guys flirting with .300 batting averages and Dustin Foss hit .400.”
Yet the team is still a long way off from contending for a conference title. What hurts the Knights the most, Johnson says, is simply lack of numbers.
“Our challenge isn’t just trying to field a winning varsity team, it’s fielding a team at all,” he said. “We hoped to have a jayvee and a varsity program, but we had to cancel the last three weeks of the jayvees because we didn’t have enough players. We lost one player because of grades. We lost another due to a family issue. Another just stopped showing up for practice. When Brenin Pearson broke his ankle, I was left with 21 players. Then due to sickness we got down to 19 and when that happened I told (Athletic Director) Jon Dupuis we can’t do this anymore.”
A jayvee program is crucial, said Johnson, who already had players at the varsity level who never had the opportunity to gain experience at the jayvee level.
“We had three starters who started as freshmen who have never even seen a jayvee field,” he said. “We did not have the depth that would allow us to let those kids play jayvees. Sure, they improved, but not like they would have if they played jayvees and we had the depth that would push them.”
Last season, the Knights had only one player recognized in their final season in the Big Eight and it was Amare Hereford earning all-conference honorable mention.
Hereford deciding to focus on refining his basketball skills in AAU ball this spring was a swing and a miss for this year’s team. Once again, Beloit had a lone all-conference selection in its first season of Southern Lakes baseball. This time outfielder Owen West earned Honorable Mention after playing a slick center field and batting a solid .292.
“I think they admired his defense and style of play,” Johnson said. “At the end of a game, Owen was always the guy with the dirtiest pants. He’s sliding on the basepaths. He’s diving for balls in the outfield. He was our leadoff man all season.”
Candidates who were looked over included catcher/pitcher Foss. Like West, Brooks Mitchell, Ruddy Ramirez and Mike Nora each batted over .290. Brenin Pearson and Tayvon Cates weren’t far behind.
Cates, a sophomore who played both outfield and some third base, earned his teammates’ vote for Most Improved. The MVP vote was a tie between Foss, Mitchell and Nora.
The bad news is that Johnson isn’t the only one leaving the program. The Knights will lose seven seniors to graduation. They will rely heavily on West for leadership and continued improvement from players like Cates and Pearson, who hit .280, but closed on a tear before an ankle injury ended his season prematurely.
They will once again be extremely young and inexperienced.
“When we played Hononegah I asked Matt Simpson how many players he was carrying on the varsity and he told me 24,” Johnson said. “I asked him how many summer ball and he looked at me like I was joking. He said 24.
“He said he had 28 on jayvees between two teams and they’re all playing summer ball, too. We had a total of eight. So this summer I thought I’d go down a level and see if I could find Beloit Memorial some more kids.”
Johnson, who has no idea who will succeed him with the Knights, hopes to give the next head coach at least a fighting chance. He’s coaching a 14U Beloit Bombers team this summer.
“I’m not totally out to pasture,” he said with a chuckle. “I want to help develop ballplayers and, while the Bombers tend to be Turner-dominated, about half of my team will go to Beloit Memorial next year. We had no freshmen with baseball experience at Beloit Memorial this year. It’s a tough thing to start doing when you’re 15 years old. That has to end.”
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