Baseball: Friendship off the field, leads to state championship on field

The 1988 St. Bede Bruins state champion baseball team was built on a solid foundation of eight senior starters and a group of players and best friends all committed to the same purpose.

The Bruins were loaded with talent, including seniors Eric Krogulski, who batted .505 with 31 RBIs, 33 stolen bases and 61 runs scored and went to play at Iowa State University, and pitching ace and ironman Brad Koster.

But they were far from just having two star players.

“They were best of friends and still are,” said retired St. Bede coach John Bellino, an Academy alum, who played for St. Bede’s state-qualifying teams in 1965 (second place) and 1968. “I’ve never had a team fit so closely as they were.”

They were best friends and still are. I’ve never had a team fit so closely as they were.”

—  John Bellino

“We would have been best friends no matter what would have come of our baseball season,” said Tom McGunnigal, a crafty senior pitcher, who sported a 4-0 record and 1.40 ERA, and now is athletic director at Kewanee Wethersfield.

“The dynamic was we had these two really good players, Eric Krogulski and Brad Koster, and they are two of the most humble people,” said Jim Perona, a senior second baseman. “Eric was the most explosive player I played any sport with. Brad just had this farm-boy, warrior toughness.

“That was the theme of the team. It was focused on winning. There was no selfishness. We were great teammates. We supported each other. And it is the way to win.”

“For me, what made the team special was how much we all liked each other. Great friends who spent a lot of time with each other on and off the field,” said Ken Bima, a senior strong-armed, power hitting short stop who is now an attorney in Springfield.

The team especially bonded together after one memorable night when they felt the wrath of coach Bellino.

“Our last loss of the season was a home game against Putnam County. Coach B is upset with our effort and holds what seemed like a two-hour practice immediately following that game ending only because darkness hit,” Bima said.

They didn’t lose again, winning 10 straight to claim the state championship.

The Bruins were the first state baseball champion from the Illinois Valley and remain as the only state champion of any sport in school history.

For their accomplishments, the 1988 Bruins team is being inducted in to the BCR’s Bureau County Sports Hall of Fame. They are 18th team to be enshrined into the Bureau County Sports Hall of Fame.

Hard road to get there

The IHSA landscape was much different in 1988. There were two classes in 1988, compared to the current four-class system instituted in 2007. Eight teams advanced to state in each class (four now) from sectional sites with no super-sectionals played.

The Bruins beat Paw Paw (20-2), Mendota (11-14) and rival Hall (5-4) to win the Class A regional title at Putnam County, which was a big accomplishment in itself, Bellino said.

“Back then, it was tough to make it out of the regionals,” Bellino said. “We would have four or five teams with 20 wins in one regional. That was difficult to get out of let alone win a state championship. I feel very fortunate as a coach.”

St. Bede beat Peoria Bergan (2-1) for the sectional championship at Henry after defeating Lanark Eastland (18-3) in the semifinals.

Next stop came the state tournament at Lanphier Park in Springfield. Perona, who lives in hometown Spring Valley and is Walmart Distribution Center manager, remembers being in awe of the whole state experience initially, fighting off a lot of pre-game jitters.

“My first at-bat I saw my name on the scoreboard, and I missed the sign,” he said with a laugh. “The good news was I got a hit, and we just moved on.”

While St. Bede athletic director Bernie Moore was confident in the Bruins, noting at the pre-tournament awards banquet that Koster needed only two victories to break the school record and “I think he’s going to do it,” not everyone was.

Perona noted how the Bruins arrived in Springfield as a big underdog against mighty Mahomet-Seymour, according to a newspaper article. Perona said that prognostication fueled the Bruins’ fire more.

In Kost we Trust

And their trust in Kost.

They got a quick confidence booster in the pitching performance of Koster, who dominated Mahomet-Seymour on a one-hit, 10-0 shutout in six innings.

“You think you’re really good, but you don’t know until the first game if you belong or not,” Perona said. “We went from do we belong here, to we were the best team here. We had this real chance.

“You see some of the other teams with these gaudy records and you win the first game 10-0, you feel can beat anybody. Your performance in that first game was just very dominating and made everybody feel like a different world.”

McGunnigal said he always felt that way with Koster on the mound.

“I felt comfortable on the field, and when he was going on that first day, it was no different,” McGunnigal said. “He was just mowing them down, and we just got more and more confident. I remember it so vividly today.”

McGunnigal also always remember Bellino’s last words before they broke on the last practice before state, when he said, “I’m not going down there to lose.”

Koster’s performance would become a common theme for the state tournament as played out the hero role mightily. He earned a save in relief in the 8-6 state semifinal win over Waterloo, in which the Bruins rallied from a 5-1 deficit, and was the winning pitcher in the 6-3 win over Alton Marquette for the state championship.

The St. Bede senior southpaw was named as the state tournament MVP for his efforts, pitching 14 of the 21 innings with two wins and a save.

“To be that sharp after pitching so much, you just don’t build people like that anymore. We just happen to have one that night,” Perona said.

Catcher Steve Pomatto, of Dalzell, now a member of the San Francisco Police Deptartment, set the Class A state tournament record with seven RBIs in three games, including five in the semifinal win over Waterloo. He was picked to the all-tournament team along with Perona and Koster, the tournament MVP.