The show goes on: Two stars hope to continue new North Boone baseball tradition

JJ Ford was born to play infield for North Boone.

His dad played second base in college.

His grandpa did, too.

JJ grew up fielding grounders from both of them.

“I grew up around baseball. This is what I want to play,” said JJ Ford, a star junior shortstop/pitcher for North Boone. “I work with them all the time to get better at the sport.

“We were always in the backyard playing catch, hitting off a tee. taking ground balls in the field, all that stuff. They built it into my brain to love baseball. They loved it so much and I just followed in their shoes.”

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Ford’s forefathers aren’t the only ones he is following. North Boone did little in baseball for more than 25 years. The Vikings were strong in the early 1990s, led by record-setting catcher Scott Klicko. Klicko, who died young at age 48 last fall, also quarterbacked North Boone to a state runner-up finish in football in 1993.

North Boone basically wasn’t heard from again in baseball until Chandler Alderman took Klicko’s spot as the greatest baseball player in the school’s history. The muscular 6-foot-5 left-hander — he also played at both quarterback and defensive line on the football team — is now the top pitcher for NCAA Division I Middle Tennessee State as a freshman, leading the team in strikeouts (31), batting average against (.211), WHIP (1.26), and shutouts (1). He is also second in ERA (3.52), which is less than half of the team ERA.

Now that Alderman has graduated, JJ Ford and Eli Lopez are the two pillars North Boone is counting on not to slip back into baseball obscurity.

Ford was a first-team All-Big Northern pick as a sophomore last year. Lopez, a senior, made second-team. They are the team’s top two pitchers. They each play shortstop when the other pitches, literally having each other’s back.

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“When you have another guy who can throw every four days, a guy who can step to the plate and make contact when he needs to and make plays in the infield — it helps a lot,” Lopez said.

Especially having a strong defensive shortstop behind you when you are pitching. Most star shortstops/pitchers lose that edge when they take the mound. Having two means North Boone always has a defensive anchor. Two of them when a third pitcher takes the mound, with Lopez sliding over to third base.

“Any time you have a good defense behind you when you are pitching helps a lot,” Lopez said. “It gets you out of innings. Seeing someone make a play for you, pumps you up. It makes it a lot easier to pitch.”

North Boone beat the top two teams in the Big Northern last year when Alderman was on the mound, edging Byron and Dixon. But the Vikings were shut out by Byron ace Braden Smith 3-0 in the regional finals, even with Alderman. This year, they won’t rely so much on one player. Or even one pitcher.

“This year we have a lot more depth,” Ford said. “A lot of the younger kids coming up pitch a lot. We have a lot more arms. Last year we had one guy, Chandler, who threw most of the innings, then Eli and me. This year we have five or six guys who can throw pretty good against good teams.”

North Boone went 19-9 last year, its best record in three decades. The Vikings think they could be even better this year. Their early record (6-2) shows they might be right.

If so, it all starts with Lopez and Ford.

Both hit over .390 last year with an OPS just over .950. Both were solid pitchers, combining for 75 strikeouts in 62 innings pitched. Both were stars on defense.

And both are expected to do even more this year.

With a lot of help from each other. And the rest of the team. In short, North Boone will replace its biggest star with its most well-rounded team in decades. Maybe ever.

“It was an interesting team the last couple of years,” North Boone coach Drew Baden said. “It was really Chandler and a whole bunch of young guys. But as young as we were in the last couple of years, that’s how old we are now. We went from a team of Chandler, a couple of seniors and then all underclassmen to now we are all juniors and seniors. And they have bought into the idea that we are a winning program now.

“Early in Chandler’s career, he carried us with his arm. The last couple of years, we weren’t winning only on days he pitched. We won with whoever we threw out there. And our JV program won 15-plus games the last three years. It makes it easier to move on from a legendary player when you have a couple of all-conference guys, as well as everyone else to go with them.”

Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Pair of new leaders hope to continue North Boone winning in baseball