By Chris Parker
Wheaton will be looking to climb above .500 for the first time since 2012 after posting a 6-14 record last spring.
Senior Kelton Park will be the leader for the Bulldogs on the field.
“Kelton Park will be our unquestioned leader for our team,” Wheaton head coach Tucker Dermott said. “He’s had four years of varsity experience and has done a lot for this program in baseball and other sports. Not as much a vocal leader, but very much a lead by example type. He does everything the way you ask it done on the field and in the classroom as well.”
Park is a pitcher and shortstop.
“Kelton will be our ace on the mound this year,” Dermott said. “He has fantastic command and is about as efficient as you could ask a pitcher to be. He works quickly and has multiple plus pitches in his arsenal to keep hitters off balance; great baseball IQ.”
Last fall, Park hit .367 with 11 RBI while posting a 2.24 ERA on the mound.
Grant Bradford (senior) and Devin Bateman (sophomore) will be Wheaton’s other top arms on the mound.
“Grant has really good movement and velocity with his pitches. He has a ton of natural movement that makes it hard to always square him up when hitting against him. Big thing for him will be command and locating pitches,” Dermott said. “For a young arm, Devin battles on the mound. He is constantly developing his repertoire, but he competes.
After that trio, there will be many players competing for time on the mound.
“We will also have a lot of different guys coming in for relief and spot starting games that will compete for a lot of innings this spring,” Dermott said.
Bradford and Kollin Garner (junior) are both in the mix for time at catcher.
“Grant has caught for me this past fall and in the past. Kollin is new to the position and caught a few games this last fall and did well,” Dermott said. “He has a great feel for the spot and could help us. I would imagine that both guys rotate at the position. Both are natural infielders that we have moved back there to fill a need. Depending on who we have on the mound, either guy could step up. Both are good hitters and each have their own strengths when behind the plate.”
CLICK HERE FOR LINKS TO ALL OF THE SPRING SPORTS PREVIEWS
Bradford hit .419 with eight RBI in the fall. Garner hit .318 with 9 RBI last spring.
Elijah Holenda (junior first base), Trenton Imel (junior second base), Bateman and Park (shortstop), Bradford (third base) and Hayden Royer (sophomore third base) will be players around the infield.
“We have a lot of returning players that have had experience with multiple spots on the infield,” Dermott said. “Our biggest battle on the infield will be at third base and catcher like I previously mentioned. If we can find someone to consistently hold down catcher, that could free up someone like Grant Bradford to play multiple positions and even hold down third.”
Holenda hit .311 with nine RBI last spring. Bateman hit .367 with 11 RBI last year. Imel came in last fall and hit .333 with six RBI.
In the outfield look for Camren Brattin (sophomore left field), Michael Hang (sophomore centerfield), Preston Johnson (sophomore right field) and Truman Thompson (junior right field).
“We look extremely young in the outfield, but every guy has played and started for at least a season already,” Dermott said. “We have a ton of experience for a young group. Our biggest battle will be right field. We need consistent offense from some of our outfield group. All of them are fantastic defenders but we need some offensive production. Whoever can add the best of both worlds, will win out.”
Hayden Royer will see time as a designated hitter in her sophomore season.
“The strength of our group this year will be depth,” Dermott said. “Our lineup both offensively and defensively will be deep. We are going to have about 12 or 13 guys that will battle for varsity time and spots. Typically, I haven’t had that as a problem but this will be a great problem to have. 1-9 in our batting order we have a great mix of contact, speed, and some pop. Our lineup on the defensive end is so multiple, and we have so many guys that can play a couple of spots. That flexibility will allow us to have multiple lineups on a given night and ride hot hands as we go throughout the season.”
Dermott will look for more consistency out of his pitchers and defense.
“We will have to be able to have guys that fill up the zone and compete on the mound and throw strikes,” Dermott said. “We have around eight arms that I know that can throw. Throwing and pitching are two different things. If we can develop some consistency with our staff we can go a lot farther than most probably think we can. Along those same lines, defensively we have to cut down on our own errors to help our pitchers out. We lost five games last spring by one or two runs. All of those close losses have the same thing in common, an error that led to a bigger inning and we weren’t able to redeem ourselves. This spring we have to switch some of those games over in our favor to be successful.”
Wheaton opens the season on Mar. 18 at home against Galena.
“As a group we sat down and discussed our goals last fall for this spring season. A big thing for this group was to get back to a .500 team and Wheaton hasn’t had that in a while,” Dermott said. “Obviously, we want to change that. We are an extremely young team. However, I’ve mentioned previously that most of the younger players have already had a lot of varsity experience because it was a necessity given our numbers. We already have good numbers that are going to play, and this will be the biggest team I’ve had since coming to Wheaton. If we can take care of our mistakes and control what we can, we can go far. I fully expect to meet our goal and also compete for conference. Conference is another goal for this group.”
