Longer playoff run among goals for season
By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
This is Mike Grover’s first year as head coach for the Delavan-Darien baseball program, but it isn’t his first rodeo.
At 57 years old, Grover has 30 years of coaching experience and over the past 10 years has been in charge of and coached various levels for the Delavan Township Lakers.
Grover said this year’s Comets are a hard-working group of kids who work well together.
“We lost a couple good pitchers to graduation and twin four-year starters that anchored the middle of the field,” Grover said. “They (were) well-coached by Paul Yanko, and I hope to make a longer playoff run.”
The twins the Comets lost were Isiah and Isaac Ramos. Isiah played shortstop and pitched and was selected to play in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Classic last season.
Yanko was the head coach of last season’s Comets and guided the team to a 10-13 record. The team lost in the first round of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association regionals to Stoughton 12-9.
The Comets went 5-4 in non-conference play a year ago and then went 5-9 in Southern Lakes Conference play.
“We should have a solid defense with experienced players to fill in for the loss from graduation,” Grover said. “We have a solid pitching staff with a number of different options. Our offense should be one of our strengths this year. We hope to generate runs by being aggressive on the bases and at the plate.”
With only a few seniors lost from last year’s team, Grover said this season should have a nice blend of experienced players who will be with talented, young players.
“We have a number of great seniors led by Roman Gonzalez, Jacob Klewin and Josh Pickel as great team leaders for our younger players,” Grover said. “We have a solid group of juniors that were first team all-conference in Jake Benzing and second team all-conference Ethan Cesarz, Jared Amborn and Jordan Ziolkowski.
“Two of our pitchers I am expecting solid performances from are Noal Brouwer and Logan Rios. Our starting catcher is going to be a freshman, Eric Gonzalez. We have great leadership and quality young players, and I think it is going to be a great mix for success.”
Grover also talked about the team playing at a .500-level in Southern Lakes Conference play this season and making a deeper run in the postseason this year. One of the keys to making that happen is the recovery of Benzing.
“Jake Benzing is coming off ACL surgery and recovering well,” Grover said. “He is a talented baseball player and hard worker on and off the field. I think he will be 100 percent by the end of the season. We have a number of other kids like Ethan Cesarz, Jacob Klewin, Jordan Ziolkowski, Noal Brouwer or Roman Gonzalez that could make a big impact.”
The Comets’ season was scheduled to begin at Tuesday at Badger High School. At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, the two teams are scheduled to play at Delavan’s Veterans Park.
