Blazers return three-year varsity hurler Villasenor.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
Addison Trail has the one commodity that all baseball teams find so very important.
Pitching.
The Blazers return a number of experienced arms from last year’s team that went 15-15 and 9-9 in West Suburban Conference Gold Division action.
Leading the way on the mound is senior and third-year varsity performer Nick Villasenor. Also back on the bump are Trevor Fulmer and Bobby Daniels.
“Nick is in his third year and Trevor is in his second and Bobby Daniels pitched a lot for us,” said Addison Trail coach Mike Kennedy.
Junior AJ Parnell also figures to be in the mix as well for a starting rotation spot. “AJ is fighting for one of the starting spots,” said Kennedy. “He didn’t lose a game in conference on the mound. Our pitching is a strength. In high-school baseball you have to have the pitching and the depth and we have that this year. It’s nice.”
Villasenor, in particular, has looked impressive during preseason workouts.
“This offseason Nick really focused and honed his craft to become more of a complete pitcher,” said Kennedy. “He’s put on about 20 pounds of good weight. He put in a lot of effort this offseason and we’ll see how that is going to pay dividends for him on the mound. We’re excited to see what he can do. It’s nice to have a guy like Nick who can go toe-to-toe with whoever is out there on the mound for the other team.”
Kennedy said the new IHSA pitch-count rule is “a good thing,” he noted. “We take care of our guys’ arms so I don’t see us being affected by it and I know the other teams we play, they aren’t overworking their players’ arms. The teams in our conference, I see responsible use of pitchers.”
Also back for the Blazers are Ricky Perez (OF, senior), Simon Marinelli (C, junior), Jack Kalbas (SS-2B, senior), Matt Crandall (P-OF), Brayan Hidalgo (DH-IF, senior), George Neri (IF, senior) and Mitch Gomez (IF, senior).
“We have some seniors who helped us out last year who will take on a bigger role and get some more playing time this year,” said Kennedy.
Sophomores Michael Scali (middle IF) and Vince Daudelin (OF) are up on the big club as well.
“The question mark is our youth and inexperience at the plate, that’s what we are working on right now,” said Kennedy. “Our pitching and our defense are our strengths. We have to find ways to generate runs. A lot of our guys have noticed this is an area of need for us. They have focused on improving themselves at the plate and improving their approach. We need to manufacture and generate runs. We don’t need four hits in a row to get runs. If we can generate runs and move runners around, we’ll be fine. We have good speed and we have a bunch of guys who are unselfish and are committed to doing that.”
Kennedy said the potential is there for his team to have a strong season. “We expect to be better,” he said. “We don’t hope, we expect. We expect to open peoples’ eyes. We want to be right in the conversation at the end of the season with the conference title on the line. We want to put ourselves in a position to compete for a conference title at the end of the year.”
