SOUTH BELOIT—Rome wasn’t built in a day and head coach Dominic Strangman knows that the South Beloit baseball program won’t be fully resurrected in one either.
Just don’t let a 2-17 record last season fool you into thinking that there wasn’t some significant progress made after the SoBos went winless in 2022.
“We took some big steps,” the head coach said. “It was the first time in a couple years that they even had won a game. A lot of last year was getting back to the basics and now this year we’re building on it.”
Strangman earned his first varsity head coaching job after being tabbed as South Beloit’s coach last offseason. Now heading into his second season, the head honcho hopes to continue to grow within the role.
“I learned there's a lot of different aspects that go into it,” he said. “And it's hard — I'm happy we play a lot of games like we do, but that means we don't get a lot of practice time. So, it's about really taking advantage of the practice time that we get and keeping the kids working hard. We have a good group of kids. There's a lot to build off of, and we have a good foundation ready to tackle year two.”
The SoBos graduated five seniors, a group that included hot-hitting Derek Neal (.375 batting average) and Jared Schober, who gave South Beloit solid at-bats and key innings off of the mound.
“We have a good amount of freshmen coming in,” Strangman said. “And a lot of those freshmen coming in have played baseball before. I feel like we're starting at a higher point this year than we were last year.
“The program's going in the right direction, so now we just keep taking that a step further with this talented freshman class that we have coming in.”
That young group starts with Richard Carlson, who had been turning heads coming up as a youth and was a dominant player with the Bennie Baseball travel team, where his coaches touted he was ready to tackle varsity play as a middle schooler.
“Richard will be our best pitcher,” Strangman said. “He’ll pitch at least once a week and we expect him to go deep into games. He’s going to pound the strike zone and get a lot of outs.”
Strangman didn’t mince words when talking about the potential Carlson brings to the squad.
“I was talking with (athletic director Sam) Cady and I was saying ‘You know, I’m spoiled in the fact that in my second year, I'm going to have one of the best players that will come across this program,’” he said. “He’s been great and had a positive attitude. He's been encouraging and pushing the other kids. And it's nice to be able to have an anchor in your pitching staff and an anchor in your hitting lineup that when he comes up, good things can happen at any point.”
Carlson will play third base when he’s not pitching while freshman Jonah Martinez takes over when his teammate is on the mound.
The SoBos infield will be filled with experience as junior Zach Baker will man shortstop, second base will be platooned between senior Kayden Ellis and freshman Gage Pasiecznik and sophomore JT Sanders returning at first base.
“It’s a lot of returning experience,” Strangman said. “Carlson has his experience in the travel ball and Zach, Kayden and JT played all season last year on the infield. Last year, a lot of guys bounced around different positions so they're comfortable playing anywhere on the infield. Depending on who's pitching that day, we can slide any one of them around and they'll be just fine at whatever spot we put them in.”
The anchor in the outfield is junior Jacob Wilhite, who will patrol center field.
“He’s a quick guy who tracks a lot of ground out there,” Strangman said. “We have a new player, he's a sophomore this year, Landen Reed. He played basketball, but he's another athlete out there in left field, and I'm really proud of the steps that he's taken. I know he has a little bit of a baseball background, but he didn't play last year and he's really hit the ground running coming out here.
“In right field we have another sophomore Andrew Kaehler, who played left field primarily for us last year. We have a lot of speed in the outfield.”
Behind Carlson in the starting rotation will be the lefty Sanders, who Strangman said has some nasty off-speed pitches. Baker will continue to see some innings from the mound while South Beloit expects to see some throwing from Reece Binder, the team’s catcher.
“We have a couple catchers this year so I can get him out on the mound a lot more this year, he's not stuck behind the plate like he's been in years past,” Strangman said.
The starting lineup will see Baker, who hit .385 last season, plugged into that coveted third spot with Carslon hitting above him and Sanders (.250) going into the four or five spot.
“We played a tough schedule last year and we got blown out of a lot of games last year,” Strangman said. “Obviously every coach wants every game to be competitive. But this year, realistically we have a good chance of being competitive in just about any game that we play. South Beloit has a reputation of not having the best baseball program. Coaches know that going into it and they're just expecting us to roll over. But I expect us to put up a fight in every game that we're out there this year.”
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