Team playing well in early season
By Tim Wester
Sports Correspondent
The freebies are over.
That’s the message Union Grove baseball coach Michael Arendt wants to send his opponents this season after a sloppy 2016 campaign that saw the Broncos give opponents too many unearned runs.
After four games this season, the Broncos are already showing signs of improvement, with three wins.
“We played some tough competition at the Adams Friendship tournament,” Arendt said. Our two losses came against two top 15 teams in Division one.”
But in those losses, the Broncos provided a snapshot into how they want to play this season, rising to the level of the competition against Eau Claire Memorial and Eau Claire North.
“We played very well against Memorial and competed,” Arendt said. “Just an inning or two that did us in.
On top of the improved defense for the Broncos is a deep and interchangeable pitching staff that figures to be a team strength.
Nolan Rebernick is projected to be the ace of the pitching staff after earning the win in the Broncos’ 7-4 victory over Racine Lutheran/Prairie. Sophomore Luke Hansel has also thrown well in the early season and figures to see plenty of time on the mound, while senior Derek Andersen figures to be a key contributor out of the bullpen.
Rebernick earned another win on the mound in Tuesday’s 7-2 home victory over Delavan-Darien.
“Our pitching is coming around nicely,” Arendt said.
“We have good depth with a lot of interchangeable parts that will surely help us with the pitch count rules.”
The Bronco offense figures to score a fair share of runs as well.
Returners Bradley Hansen, Alex Spang, and Peter Rossman are off to solid starts this season and figure to provide an offensive spark this spring. Shortstop Jason DeBrabander and third baseman Logan Johnson have also have impressed Arendt thus far.
“Our guys in the field are doing well and starting to learn,” Arendt said “We had question marks coming into the season, but that’s been something we have been trying to figure out yet.”
With improved defense and hitting and a deep rotation, the Broncos look to improve from a 10-15 record in 2016.
Unfortunately for the Broncos, the rest of the Southern Lakes Conference looks to be improved as well.
“Burlington will be tough again and Wilmot has a great team coming back with a lot of quality players returning,” Arendt said. “Westosha Central should hit well and they’ll be up there, and Waterford should have a nice team. Everyone in the Lakes will be tough and I expect our conference to perform well in nonconference games.”
Where do the Broncos figure in?
“We’ll need our hitting to continue to develop and we’ll need our defense to be strong,” Arendt said. “If we can do both with our pitching depth, we should be able to win a lot of games.”
-
-
-
-
-