L-W West Baseball Players Look to Prove Themselves as Warriors of Summer

The Lincoln-Way West baseball team lost a a great deal of talent to graduatio

Players like Luke Andrade, Matt Bishop, Dan Fifer and Cody Vogler, among many others, donned the Warriors uniform for the last time in late May.

This summer, a large roster of up-and-coming players has tried to fill the void, as the team will head into next spring with plenty of question marks in the infield, outfield and on the mound.

"We graduated almost eight or nine, depending on who was pitching," Lincoln-Way West coach Jake Zajc said. "Even the juniors who are going to be seniors still have to fight for jobs, and we have a lot of sophomores up with us and are trying to figure out what they can and cannot do."

Luke Morgan, Nick Mikoff, Tyler Kopp and Ryan Clavenna are the only Warriors who saw a decent amount of action on the varsity squad earlier this year. They've had a chance to play a lot this summer as has the rest of the roster.

"We like to play everyone as much as possible and see what they can do," Zajc said. "It's good to try to find out where they can fit in, and a lot of questions have been answered. Some guys have stepped up and won some roles, and it's been a productive summer in that regard."

During Monday morning's opening-round win against Romeoville in the 2011 IHSBCA Phil Lawler Summer Classic, the Warriors dropped down six successful bunts, three for sacrifices and three for hits.

"That's something we stress in our program and even more with the new bats coming next year," Zajc said. "You have to force them to make plays and two of our big innings started with some bunts that got things moving."

The tighter bat restrictions that begin next spring are expected to impact the game quite a bit. In anticipation, the Warriors used wood bats for the majority of the summer.

"It's going to be a different game next year, with less big hits and less home runs," Kopp said. "It's definitely going to be interesting, and I think you're going to see more bunting."

There hasn't been one thing in particular the Warriors have worked on the most this summer. With so many new players, the focus has been on getting better in all phases of the game.

"At this stage in the high school game, all phases have to be worked on," Zajc said. "Today, we had some positive at-bats and got some bunts down, but we also made some bad decisions as far as effort, where we're going with the ball and some plate appearances."