How Litchfield baseball went from 9-23 to a chance at school record for wins
Rocky Giannuzzi looked at the remaining schedule, did some basic math and checked a couple of facts.
His baseball team, with an 11-0 record before March ended, had a chance to get close to the program record for wins.
The second-year coach of the Litchfield baseball team knew his team had a chance to make a leap after a 9-23 season the year before, but this has been a pleasant surprise.
The Purple Panthers can make that bit of history Thursday, when No. 3 Litchfield faces No. 6 Pana in the Class 2A Gillespie Regional semifinals at 4:30 p.m. The Purple Panthers (24-7) beat Pana 6-2 on April 18 and 9-5 the following day.
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Continuation of a trend
The Litchfield athletic program is undergoing a renaissance.
The Purple Panthers football team went from a 47-game losing streak, which ended in 2022, to its first playoff berth since 2005 last fall.
The boys basketball team improved from 1-10 in the coronavirus-shortened 2021 season to its first 20-win season since 2018-19 this winter — despite a midseason coaching change.
And the baseball team, which went 6-31 over 2021 and 2022, is tied with the 2000 and 2012 teams for the most wins in the program’s nearly 75 years of records.
Many of the names on Giannuzzi’s roster are familiar: Tate Dobrinich, Ethan and Carson Saathoff and Max Leitschuh were all involved in those football and basketball success, too. Senior Drake Gasperson, who scored 39 goals for the 16-6 boys soccer team in the fall, also brings a level of competitiveness and winning pedigree to the baseball team.
Last year, Litchfield had just two players hit over .300 and six above .200. Through this regular season, the Purple Panthers had nine players over .200 and four were hitting better than .300.
Gasperson leads the team with a .381 average (37-for-97). Sophomore Matt Bywater is at .378 with a .525 on-base percentage. The team has 11 home runs, including Dobrinich’s team-high four. Five players – Gasperson, Dobrinich, Leitschuh and Ethan and Carson Saathoff – have combined to drive in 113 runs.
“I didn’t play basketball, so I was locked in, coming in to get extra swings at the beginning of the year,” Gasperson said about his improvement from a .208 season in 2023. “I was really focused and I was trying to (provide) that leadership to the team. I felt like we were going to have a great season, but maybe not this great.”
Litchfield also has four pitchers with an ERA under 2.00: Ethan Saathoff leads the team with a 1.57 ERA and a 5-1 record in 35 2/3 innings, while Dobrinich, Gasperson and Carson Saathoff give Giannuzzi enough depth to survive a short turnaround from one game to the next.
“We don’t even know who the MVP of this team is,” Giannuzzi said. “This year, we could probably give out four MVP awards.”
Carson Saathoff is the catcher and is valuable there, so he doesn’t get as many chances to pitch because he’s needed on the other end of the battery tandem.
Gasperson said he can feel the added confidence in the hallways since the Purple Panthers started their winning ways across many sports.
“It’s crazy that every sport that our senior class has done,” Gasperson said, "we’ve challenged the underclassmen to do the same thing next year and hopefully we started something new for Litchfield High School for years to come.”
Seniors setting a tone
Many of the seniors on the baseball team are multi-sport athletes whose No. 1 priority isn’t baseball. So, their offseasons, such as they are, usually focus on their top sports and a quick pivot to the next.
“My seniors have definitely stepped up this year,” Giannuzzi said. “They didn’t put in as much work as the sophomores, but they’re just gifted and they relied on their talent and everything. They are a talented and gifted class.
“None of those seniors are going and playing travel ball like my sophomores are, going three days a week. The seniors, when they are in a sport, they’re all about that sport but then they’re not really working on their other sports. When summer comes, it’s basically football season for them so they’re basically not playing any baseball.”
However, the leadership and competitiveness that the seniors provide more than make up for their crispness at the start of the season.
“Our seniors are great leaders,” Ethan Saathoff said. “In practice, they always led the underclassmen and everyone else, they always do what they are supposed to do and they always listen to the coach. They are great leaders for us.”
Giannuzzi said he knew this year was different when Litchfield came back from a 6-4 deficit to beat New Berlin late on March 21 to improve to 6-0.
“Last year, our boys quit so many times if we were down one or two,” he said. “When we were down one with our No. 9 hitter up with two outs and nobody on the bases and our No. 9 hitter gets hit by a pitch, Bywater gets a hit and Carson smashes a double to score both runs to take the lead in the seventh, I was like, ‘OK, we might actually compete every single game.”
More time helps
Giannuzzi had about two weeks with his entire team before the start of the 2023 season. He didn’t even have a preferred batting order or know the best positions to put his players. Today, he’s learned a lot about the group, and the players feel the added comfort level.
“The beginning of the season, we had a lot of practices,” Ethan Saathoff said. “We had a lot more reps facing live pitching and it helped us get ready more than we did last season.”
Bywater led the Mount Olive basketball team in scoring and he was able to work on both sports during the summer break.
“We were putting in more work over the summer,” Bywater said of the baseball team. “I feel like we didn’t get enough playing time together last year, but we’ve got to know each other more.”
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA baseball: Litchfield goes into postseason with loads of confidence
