Loyola’s bats are hot in early going, but first-year coach believes team’s pitching is the key

It looks like it will take some doing to best Loyola Academy baseball this season.

Lane Tech found that out on Monday night, when the Champions need nearly four hours to emerge victorious, 17-14, on the Ramblers’ home field in Glenview.

The wild, marathon affair resulted in the first defeat of the young season for Loyola, which began the year with three straight victories.

“We learned a lot as a coaching staff, the players learned a lot,” first-year Ramblers coach Sean Batti said on Monday’s result. “… Lane deserves a lot of credit. They’re going to be one of the best teams in our sectional.

“We have a mix of some sophomores, juniors and seniors. We’re still trying to find out who we are and have to clean up some mistakes, but there were a ton of positives in that game.”

One of the positives was the team’s offense, which for the third straight came scored at least 12 runs.

Through four games, the Ramblers are averaging 11 runs per outing, and on Monday, they swatted six home runs — Teddy Kurtzweil had two and Anthony Reavy, Sebastian Urbanowski, Rob Clingan and Jack Kaplan one apiece.

“We didn’t think we were going to be as good hitting, but our kids have bought in and are swinging the bat well,” Batti said.

The Ramblers jumped out to an 8-0 lead on Monday, but the Champions fought back until the game was knotted at 10-10 in the fifth inning.

The teams traded runs and moments from there, and it was 13-13 when Loyola loaded the bases with nobody out in the seventh. But they couldn’t push a run home, and Lane Tech scored four in extra innings to steal the win.

Despite the elevated final score, Batti believes his team’s pitching, specifically its depth, is what will define the Ramblers this season.

Joe Kelly, Dom Maloney, Langston Booth and Hayden Harrington front Loyola’s rotation, but Batti said Loyola has a stable of 14 arms “who we can put in any moment and can trust.”

And they’ll be taking cues from a special newcomer: Christian Friedrich, the team’s new pitching coach and a former Loyola great who pitched in the Major Leagues (2012-’16).

“We’re very, very lucky to have Christian,” Batti said. “He’s nails. He really understands the game and he’s so good with kids, and kids respond to him.”

Batti is new to his position as well, but not the program. He’s coached at Loyola for nine seasons, as well as several at Glenbrook South, his alma mater.

He previously had passed on an opportunity to go for the Ramblers managerial role, but when Josh Howard left the program after five years, it felt like the right time to step up to the plate, he said.

“I know the talent we have here, I love the game of baseball and I thought this was the right opportunity,” Batti said. “… I think we have one of the best staffs in the state of Illinois, which made it an easy decision for me to go for it.”

The Ramblers field a healthy mix of talent from sophomore infielders Alex Govoni and Bennett Kono to senior leaders Reavy, a first baseman committed to Milwaukee School of Engineering, and Joe Kelly, a right-handed pitcher and Bradley commit.

Batti spoke glowingly about the talent up and down his roster. But that is nothing new, he said. Loyola usually has a lot of talent, even when their record doesn’t show it. The Ramblers annually compete with the state’s best — from Mount Carmel to Providence Catholic to Brother Rice — in the Chicago Catholic League.

The first-year coach, though, said talent is talent and the Ramblers are up there with the best of them.

“Obviously there is a lot of high-caliber players on these teams,” he said. “I’m going to play it as a mentality shift. In the past, I’ve heard kids not believing in theirselves, in the team, but we’ve talked as a whole about how we have talent too and those kids put their pants on the same way we do and we just have to go in there with a fighters’ mentality and battle for seven innings.”

The Ramblers have local games scheduled through April 4 and then head on a spring break trip to Arizona. CCL play begins April 20-21 with a home-and-home series with St. Rita.

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