North Olmsted High School Baseball 2017 Season Preview

By Patrick Kennedy

North Olmsted struggled to get wins last season, but looks to bounce back in 2017. We talked with Eagles coach Tim Murphy about some of the team’s strengths, weaknesses and expectations for this season.

Strengths

The Eagles will have to be strong in many areas. Perhaps the biggest strength is youth, “[Our strength is] probably our young players who will get better every week and because we have such a strong sophomore class we’ll be good for the next couple years,” Murphy said.

He went on to say, “Probably our strength will be our front end pitching, we have a couple older pitchers that we may not attain but that’s probably the biggest strength we have right now.”

Weaknesses

North Olmsted struggled to hit last season and Murphy addressed that, “[Our weakness is] probably offense. We didn’t hit the ball very well last year and we got a few guys that really struggled last year at the plate that are gonna play a lot this year and I would just say our ability to score runs and swing the bat. So it’s our biggest weakness, it’s probably more like our biggest question mark. If we can hit.”

Team Leaders

When asked about who will lead the team Murphy responded, “Dynis Frigic who led the team in hitting last year. Ryan Kistemaker, and Sam Guercio, our two top pitchers that are gonna need to eat a lot of innings for us and between those three and we have a newcomer in Eric Adams who transferred in. He should be a good addition to our team. How they go will probably be the direction of our team and how our younger players follow along.”

Who’s the team to beat in the Southwestern Conference?

“Amherst,” Murphy said when asked who the favorites are in the SWC.

“Amherst and Avon are very good but Amherst will be clearly the favorites. The thing about the SWC is there are no days off. Every team has great strength and every team has the ability of being really good at least two days of the three a week so it depends on when you catch ‘em. Last year, we were in the bottom half of the standings and we beat the conference champions (Avon). Nobody wins our league undefeated. Every day is kind of a war, and our conference is known for that. That’s why teams from the SWC usually move on in the State Tournament pretty well.”

2017 Roster
Dynis Frigic C, 1B
Ryan Kistemaker P, 3B
Alex Roth 1B, 3B
Seamus Keane 2B
Ryan Fenton OF
Sam Guercio P, OF
Anthony Novak OF, P
Cole Wagner OF
Kyle Sabota 3B
Eric Adams P, OF
Alex Rahm 1B
Clay Rainey 2B
Sean Elbin SS
Travis Vitaz C
George Trapletti P
Darien Stanley P

2017 Schedule

03.25.2017	11:00am	Bay High School	N				MAP
03.27.2017	4:30pm	Fairview	N				MAP
03.29.2017	4:30pm	Midview High School	C				MAP
03.30.2017	4:30pm	Avon High School	C				MAP
03.31.2017	4:30pm	Lutheran West High School	N				MAP
04.01.2017	11:00am	Parma	N				MAP
04.03.2017	4:30pm	Westlake High School	C				MAP
04.05.2017	4:30pm	Lakewood	C				MAP
04.06.2017	4:30pm	North Ridgeville High School	C				MAP
04.10.2017	4:30pm	Amherst	C				MAP
04.13.2017	4:30pm	Olmsted Falls High School	C				MAP
04.17.2017	4:30pm	Avon Lake High School	C				MAP
04.18.2017	4:30pm	St. Mary’s Prepatory High School	N				MAP
04.19.2017	4:30pm	Midview High School	C				MAP
04.20.2017	4:30pm	Avon High School	C				MAP
04.21.2017	5:00pm	Buckeye High School	N				MAP
04.24.2017	4:30pm	Westlake High School	C				MAP
04.26.2017	4:30pm	Lakewood	C				MAP
04.27.2017	4:30pm	North Ridgeville High School	C				MAP
04.29.2017	10:00am	Lorain High School	N				MAP
05.01.2017	4:30pm	Amherst	C				MAP
05.03.2017	4:30pm	Berea-Midpark High School	C				MAP
05.04.2017	4:30pm	Olmsted Falls High School	C				MAP
05.05.2017	4:30pm	Garfield Heights High School	N				MAP
05.06.2017	11:00am	Elyria (DH)	N				MAP
05.08.2017	4:30pm	Avon Lake High School	C				MAP