Joliet Junior College baseball, softball qualify for NJCAA World Series

Although it seems like it happens nearly every spring, the Joliet Junior College baseball team will make its first appearance in the NJCAA Division III World Series since 2015.

The Wolves (39-23) beat Owens Community College of Ohio two games to one last weekend to win the Great Lakes Region and become one of the final eight teams that will play in Greeneville, Tennessee. JJC is seeded fourth at the World Series and will play No. 5 seed Northern Essex in the opening round of the double-elimination tournament Saturday.

The JJC softball team, too, qualified for the NJCAA Division III World Series in DeWitt, New York, a first in school history, after upsetting top-ranked Caldwell Tech on its way to the district title. The Wolves (35-21), under head coach Emily Marino, as of this writing are 1-1 at the World Series and awaiting an elimination-round game.

It also has been a strong season for Wolves baseball under head coach Gregg Braun, who is making his first World Series appearance as head coach after being an assistant on several trips under Wayne King.

“We hope to make this a more regular thing,” Braun said. “It seemed like for a while we were going almost every year, but it has slowed down a little bit. The goal when I took over was to get us back to the World Series. Fortunately, I have been here before, not as a head coach, but enough to have a game plan and to know what we should expect.

“It’s been a heck of a run.”

Many of the mainstays on the Wolves team hail from The Herald-News coverage area.

“We have such good high school baseball programs right in the JJC district,” said Braun, who doubles as the school’s athletic director. “And we at JJC have good relationships with all of the high school coaches in the area. If someone like [Minooka coach] Jeff Petrovic or [Plainfield North coach] John Darlington or [Providence Catholic coach] Mark Smith calls me and tells me he has a guy that would be a good fit for us, a lot of times, I don’t even have to look at the guy. I trust the coaches around here. They are honest with me, just like I am honest with the four-year coaches that come recruiting our guys.

“We’ve had a lot of success at JJC, and a lot of the reason for that is because we get good players from right here at home. Their high school coaches know that, and they know what kids the junior college route is a good fit for.”

It was hard for Braun to pin down one reason for his team’s success this year.

Rather, it has been a combination of things coming together at the right time. He pointed to a doubleheader with Madison College in Wisconsin, which was a top-ranked Division II team at the time. The Wolves lost the opener of that twin bill in walk-off fashion before winning the second game and taking off from there.

Since that game, they have won nine of their last 11 to advance to the World Series.

“The trademark of our season depends on which game it is,” Braun said. “For the most part, our starting pitching has been really good. Joey Boland [Lincoln-Way East], Luke Guenther [Lemont] and Justin Waddell [Lockport] have been very good for us all year. And, we have our bullpen set-up guy, Jared Daly [Lincoln-Way Central] and our closer, Jack Otis [Minooka]. Otis leads the country in saves with 13, and he’s also 5-1. Having it laid out that way, our starters only have to give us five, six strong innings and our bullpen can take over.

“Down the stretch, we have really gotten a lot of timely, clutch hitting, and our defense has been outstanding. Really, every part of our game has been very good.”

The Wolves as a team are hitting .315 on the year, led by Providence Catholic graduate Sebastian Biggs, who is hitting .421 with a team-high 94 hits to go with 12 doubles, six triples, three home runs and 50 RBIs. Biggs plays and hits third, and he comes from a program where he saw nothing but top competition.

“This is going to be an exciting trip,” he said. “I started college going to Ave Maria, a school in Florida, but I didn’t really like it there, so I came home to Joliet. It has definitely been the right choice for me.

“When I told Coach Braun I was going to come to JJC, I texted him and told him I wanted to win a natty [national championship], and here we are, going to the World Series. It would be great to bring the natty home to Joliet.

“I think the strength of our team is that we just enjoy every day together. We are like a family. We all get along well off the field, and we all want to win. Since we’re coming to the World Series, we might as well win it all,” Biggs said.

“We knew we could be that team that got on a run and stayed hot. It has been up and down our lineup. Everyone has each other’s backs.”