By Mike Moore
Correspondent
Normally, Catholic Central baseball coach Tom O’Connell only dwells on wins and losses when a conference or state title is on the line.
This time was different.
When the Hilltoppers beat Milwaukee King 6-3 on May 17 at Beaumont Field, O’Connell reached 500 career wins. He became just the seventh Wisconsin spring baseball coach to hit that milestone.
“It means an awful lot,” he said. “I’ve had the good fortune to be around a lot of good people for a lot of years.”
Team parents presented him a cake immediately after the game, and the players gave a round of applause. O’Connell joked that the cake had to stay refrigerated longer than expected, given the team’s struggles this season.
O’Connell, who began his varsity coaching career at Milwaukee Pulaski in 1974, said he remains in touch with “kids” from those earliest years. He noted that the short spring season makes it a challenge to attain 500 wins. So do the tough opponents he schedules to prepare his players for the rigor of postseason play.
Against King, Brandon Vandehei got the victory in his first varsity start. Recently called up from the junior varsity squad to fill a hole in the pitching staff, the sophomore threw a complete game while striking out three and allowing just one earned run.
“That’s pretty good for a kid thrown into the lion’s den,” said O’Connell, calling Vandehei the most improved player in the Catholic Central program from 2013 to 2014.
Win No. 501 followed quickly, as the Hilltoppers pounded Metro Classic Conference foe Martin Luther 17-1 on Monday in Greendale. That boosted the team’s record to 5-11 overall and 2-6 in conference games.
Tegan Miles continued a scorching stretch at the plate, knocking in two runs for his third multiple-RBI game in four days. Nolan Girard, who O’Connell said had uncharacteristically struggled at the plate through much of May, rebounded to drive in three more.
Alec Wegge went 4-for-4 with a double.
On the mound, Cal Sanfelippo limited the Spartans to two hits. He also drove in two runs in the game, which was called by rule after five innings.
When the same two teams matched up two days earlier, the result was strikingly different. Making up a game that had been rained out earlier in the season, Martin Luther won 9-7 in the first of Catholic Central’s two games on Saturday.
The Hilltoppers also lost 9-4 in a nonconference matchup against Milwaukee Reagan on Friday.
Both games were winnable, O’Connell said. He pointed to a dropped infield pop fly and base-running mistakes as illustrations of the team’s deficiencies this year.
“Some of the guys, they just don’t have a lot of baseball sense,” he said. “And that’s a hard thing to teach.”
Appreciative as he was to join the 500-win club, O’Connell wants his teams to focus on winning at the right time. It’s a strategy that has paid off in the past, with five WIAA state championships since he arrived in Burlington in 2001.
Unlikely as a sixth might seem this season, he remembers a 2008 team that opened the season 1-8 before rallying to take the title. Five conference games remain before the Hilltoppers move on to WIAA Division 4 regional play.
One of those was played Tuesday, as Catholic Central came up on the short end of a 5-3 loss to Racine Lutheran/Prairie.
Lutheran/Prairie scored four runs in the top of the seventh inning after CCHS led 2-1 going into that inning.
The Hilltoppers responded with a run in the bottom of the seventh, but could not draw even.
Austin Hayes suffered the complete-game loss for CCHS, allowing eight hits and five runs – only two of which were earned.
Hayes and Jake Surges had doubles in the game, while Nolan Girard hit a pair of triples and had two RBI.
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