Hungry for fun, improvement: Ripon American Legion Post 43 baseball team will begin season Saturday vs. Green Lake | Sports

After coming within three outs of advancing to the championship game of the Green Lake Regional Tournament last season, the Ripon American Legion Post 43 baseball team seeks to build off that experience this season while also having fun.

Ripon returns 10 of 15 players from last season, while also welcoming three new players who just completed their freshman year of high school — two of whom played on the varsity baseball team this past spring.

“I’m looking forward to another fun year,” Ripon head coach Paul Trochinski said of the upcoming season. “We’ve got a lot of good talent returning from last year. I thought we did what we set out to do last year. I think the boys at the end of the year had a good time. We knocked some teams out of the tournament that probably weren’t expecting to get knocked out by us and when the boys needed to, I think they stepped up.”

Among the returners are Ripon High School class of 2023 graduates Henry Willett, Jaxson Banks and Kacin Vande Berg; incoming seniors Max Belling, Mason Killam, Adam Sina, Jayden Trochinski and Jacob Riddick; incoming sophomore Shay Otto and Ripon High School class of 2022 graduate Dayton Baird.

New to the Legion team this year are incoming sophomore Coy DeVries, Nolan Dragolovich and Dylan Martyna. Both DeVries and Dragolovich, along with Otto, saw plenty of playing time for the varsity team as freshmen this past season, while Martyna got his feet wet at the junior varsity level for the Tigers.

Paul Trochinski noted that he wants to get some of the younger kids more playing time and different experiences this summer, which he doesn’t foresee being much of a problem with only 13 players being out for the team.

“Just because of the numbers, I expect to be moving some guys around again, getting them to play positions that maybe they never played before,” Trochinski said.

One position where a lot of players will see work is pitcher. On its roster, Ripon lists seven of its 13 players as pitchers, and Paul Trochinski noted other players could be asked to toe the rubber as well this summer.

Among the pitchers who figure to see the most work based on last year’s Legion season, as well as the most recent high school season are Willett, Riddick, Otto, DeVries, Killam, Vande Berg and Sina.

“I feel like it’s a strong pitching staff and the ones that are listed as pitchers are ones that I plan on putting on the mound,” Paul Trochinski said. “There may be other ones that I don’t necessarily plan on putting on the mound, but in positions where I need pitchers … other kids may have to step up to the mound to throw.”

Baird is one of those players who could be called upon to pitch as Paul Trochinski noted that as a freshman and sophomore playing junior varsity for him that Baird pitched and did well, but hasn’t pitched much in the last two to three years. Paul Trochinski also said Belling, who figures to be the team’s primary catcher for most of the season, could see time on the mound. He pitched on a couple occasions last year, including the final game.

“When you need somebody to throw pitches across the plate and let the defense do the work, that’s what we might have to resort to if we’re low on pitching,” the Ripon head coach said in regards to Belling pitching.

While positions could be fluid, DeVries, Jayden Trochinski, Riddick, Banks and Baird all figure to see playing time in the outfield. Otto, Dragolovich, Sina, Killam, Willett and Vande Berg likely will spend a lot of time in the infield.

One area where Paul Trochinski sees room for improvement is swinging the bats. For the past few years — in both Legion and high school baseball — Ripon has struggled at times stringing hits together and scoring runs.

“Offense is something that we always need to improve on, getting swings in [and] making sure we’re aggressive at the plate so we’re not getting down 0-2, but also making the opposing pitchers pitch,” he said. “Maybe not going up and swinging at the first two pitches, but making the guy throw 20, 30 pitches in an inning instead of five to 10.”

Ultimately, Paul Trochinski noted success will come from having fun and making strides as the year progresses.

“It’s always good to come in at the end of the season and think that the players got better; in their eyes and mine,” he said. “And I think that’s how I would judge the season. It’s always nice to win; I like to win, but it’s not always what’s important. It’s about getting through to the boys, making sure that they understand the team philosophy and making sure that they set goals for themselves and either meet or beat those goals by the end of the year.”

Ripon will start its season with five-straight home games, which include contests against Green Lake (Saturday), Markesan (Tuesday, June 20) and Waupaca (Wednesday, June 21). It also will host a round-robin tournament against Tomahawk and Hartford Saturday, June 24 at Ripon College, before playing five-consecutive road games. It then will conclude its regular season with three home games in a row from July 7 to July 16.

The regional tournament is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 21, but Paul Trochinski noted he doesn’t have an exact date or location for that yet.