Baseball: Sycamore ready to take on Nazareth in first trip to state

DeKALB – Given there were no athletics when they were freshmen because of COVID-19 restrictions, the 14 seniors on the Sycamore baseball roster are making up for lost time.

For the four seniors who also are listed on the football roster, Friday’s Class 3A State semifinal against Nazareth will be the third semifinal in the past two school years – and the second one this year against the Roadrunners.

“That was a really gritty game and I expect nothing less on Friday too,” Tarnoki said. “We’re going to go out there, we’re going to butt heads just like on the football field and should be a really good game.

—  Kiefer Tarnoki, Sycamore baseball

“It’s special because it’s really rare to get a group of guys that are this talented and this fun to be around,” senior second baseman and outfielder Joey Puleo said before the Spartans’ practice Wednesday at NIU’s baseball field. “I’ve spent the better part of three years with six guys on this team. It’s just special to be a part of that.”

Puleo, Kiefer Tarnoki, Addison Peck and Conner Williar are the seniors listed on the football and baseball rosters. The football team lost 10-7 on a late drive to the Roadrunners, who went on to win a state championship.

Now the baseball team, playing in the state tournament for the first time, will face the Roadrunners – also the defending state champions in baseball.

“That was a really gritty game, and I expect nothing less on Friday, too,” said Tarnoki, the leadoff hitter and center fielder for the Spartans. “We’re going to go out there, we’re going to butt heads just like on the football field and should be a really good game. I don’t think it really changes much. We have to just see it like it’s another opponent, another game. Hopefully it will come out on our side.”

After playing the semifinal in Sycamore, the baseball teams will meet at noon Friday at Duly Health and Care Field in Joliet. The championship game will be at about 11:30 a.m. Saturday against either Grayslake Central or Effingham, with the semifinal losers meeting at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Nazareth (32-6) is playing in its sixth state tournament, having won its first title last year.

“I don’t think it will be any different with these guys, but it’s definitely on their minds as kind of a revenge game,” Sycamore coach Jason Cavanaugh said. “We have a lot of guys that played football this year. You can’t really play baseball like that, you know what I mean? You have to have the same mentality all the time. I don’t think it will be that much different playing Nazareth than playing someone else.”

Jimmy Amptmann is expected to be the starting pitcher for Sycamore (32-5). He’s 9-0 on the year with a 1.46 ERA, having struck out 78 batters and walked 28 in a team-high 48 innings.

Amptmann is in that large group of seniors that have powered the state run. Cavanaugh said he’s had high expectations with this group since they were freshman.

But in that 2020 season, all athletics were canceled because of the pandemic. The next year, the football and baseball seasons overlapped, creating a strange feeling as the Spartans lost in a regional final.

Since then, Sycamore is 60-11 and has made the supersectional round two years in a row.

“It was awkward because we’d have a couple of the guys on Tuesday and Thursdays and a couple of the guys on Monday and Wednesday and there were no games on Fridays,” Cavanaugh said. “And some of them were beat up on Saturday. It was just an awkward season, and we had a little bit of an early exit that year starting six sophomores.”

For all their accomplishments, this group still hasn’t made a state championship game. The Spartans lost to Fenwick last football season in a semifinal. But on Friday they’ve got the chance to break through against the same school that thwarted them earlier this school year in football.

Tarnoki said the trip to the state finals is the final step of a journey that started three years ago.

“COVID ruined a lot of things, but that’s when we started our progression,” Tarnoki said. “Over the years I’ve got to see my guys grow alongside myself. Getting to see the success that comes out of that work we’ve put in the last couple of years it really shows our work ethic and that we’ve been able to come together as a group, put it all on the field and see success come out of it.”