DePaul Prep Defeats Timothy Christian 7-3 to Win 2A Sectional Championship

The DePaul Prep Rams got ahead early and stayed away to take another sectional championship 7-3 over Timothy Christian and advance to face Byron in the super-sectional on Memorial Day.

With a huge crowd on hand at Montini, the DePaul Prep Rams (22-14) took on the Timothy Christian Trojans (17-15). The Rams were the visiting team. That’s okay; it just gave the chance to grab an early lead.

And so they did. In the top of the first, with one out, Vance Kurokowa walked. Oliver Vigerust singled. Kevin O’Connor walked. Griffin Horne singled. Vance scored. Beni Espinosa singled. Shane Leonard, the runner for Vigerust, scored. Kevin O’Connor scored. C. Klein singled. Michael Bloom, the runner for Griffin Home, scored. Carter Levine struck out. Addison Latko struck out. So that’s four runs in the first. 

Dylan Kaminski had a four-run lead before he took the mound. That’s not a good idea for Timothy Christian to spot Dylan four runs.

In the bottom of the first, Dylan set down the first two hitters. But walked the third hitter on four pitches. He would struggle with control all day. The Trojans’ J. Armstrong absolutely crushed Dylan’s third pitch well over the fence in right-center. Lots of action in the first.

The Rams added one in the second then gave one back in the bottom of the fifth on a curious balk call with a man on third base.

“I was just trying it over the plate. They were kind of smacking me. My curve ball was not working against their two hitter. I slowed down a little bit. Once the bases were loaded I knew we had this on the line. I just wanted to lock it in and just get it down,” Dylan Kaminski told me about that fifth inning.

“I was a little tired but persevered and got through it.”

But it was Addison Latko’s tremendous homerun in the top of the seventh that put the game away. On a 3-2 count, Timothy Christian reliever J. Armstrong served one up and out over the plate. Latko absolutely crushed it out onto 16th Street. Two runs in. 7-3. With AJ Garcia in for Kaminski, that was pretty much it.

“I was locked in from the start. I was ready in that a bat, the adrenaline. Everybody yelling chirps at me. The crowd talking. Everything was good. I loved it. It fueled me to just get up there and hit that homerun,” Addison Latko said, hardly able to contain himself.

“It was a fast ball and I hit fast ball. I love fast balls. That’s my favorite pitch to hit. So I just took a drive. Let it in the zone and big dog is gonna eat. That’s what happened baby.”

A convincing win for the Rams. A sectional championship in hand, in curiously workmanlike fashion. Another day at the office.

And another day at the office on Monday in the Super-sectional against Byron High School. Interestingly, this will be the second super-sectional match up for a Rams team in the last couple months. In March, the DePaul Prep girls basketball lost a super-sectional game to Byron in Elgin.

This Rams baseball team will face a 25-6 Byron baseball team in Rockford on Monday, Memorial Day, at 1:00 p.m., at the Rockford Rivets Stadium.

DePaul Prep Defeats ITW Speer 16-1 on Senior Night

DePaul Prep v. St. Rita

41 degrees is about as cold as I can take when photographing a baseball game.

The DePaul Prep Rams faced the St. Rita Mustangs at Kerry Wood Field to open Chicago Catholic League conference play.

I left after the fourth inning when the Rams were down 6-2. Other things to do unfortunately so I don’t know who won the game.

I am getting back into the swing of shooting baseball. I did not have my 300mm lens with me so these were taken from some weird angles from behind the screen. I had the GoPro going so I will get that video up soon also.

DePaul Prep Falls to Timothy Christian 4-3

The DePaul Prep Rams fell to Timothy Christian 4-3 in twelve innings Monday evening in the 2A IHSA Regional Final. I am not sure I have seen a more exciting high school game. Back and forth. Extra base hits. Plays at the plate. Runs out stealing. Even a runner was hit by a batted ball—Haas was not happy.

The Rams scored in the top of the seventh to tie and then held the Trojans scoreless in the bottom of the frame to force extra innings.

Ultimately, the Rams fell in the bottom of the twelve innings. It was a great game in front of a big crowd. The Rams left it all on the field.

I wish I could give it the full treatment but just wasn’t set up to write a story about the game. I had spent the day at Wrigley for the Lane City Championship game. You will just have to settle for the photos.

Great job Rams!

DeLaSalle Defeats DePaul Prep 40-37

The DePaul Prep Rams (3-1, 10-2) fell to the DeLaSalle Meteors (0-3, 4-13) Friday evening (January 7, 2022) 40-37 at the Tom Winiecki Gym.

The Rams were without their head coach Tom Kleinschmidt but were ably led for the evening by assistant coach Michael Sneed. Coach Kleinschmidt is expected back for tomorrow’s Steve Pappas Shootout.

The Meteors came out shooting well and jumped out to an early first quarter lead on the strength of three three-pointers. At the start of the second quarter it looked like the Rams might do what they usually do—pull ahead but despite taking a 19-16 lead, the Rams could not hold their lead.

DeLaSalle’s coach Gary DeCesare is just one of those coaches that can impact a game by the shear force of his will. Maybe it’s just me, but he is as much fun to watch as the action on the court. He returned to coaching in the Chicago Catholic League this year after coaching out of state last season. He formerly coached at St. Rita where he met with considerable success during his tenure. I caught up with him after the game.

“DePaul’s a great program. They were the number one team in the state last year and those kids that played tonight were on that team; so they know how to win,” DeCesare said.

“For our program, taking over, trying to change the culture, we are learning how to win. We played some really tough competition. Our last seven games have been out-of-state. We played in [Las] Vegas and Arkansas. We went 0-7. I told the kids when you come back, you are going to meet teams just like we played. Everybody in the Catholic League is good and well coached. We’ll be prepared.”

As so they were.

They came ready to play. There were precious few inside buckets for the Rams. DePaul’s senior center Dylan Arnett had difficulty getting the ball inside. And when he did, he was mobbed.

“Dylan’s a really good player. We have some bigs and I told everybody, ‘Use your fouls. Use all five fouls.’ We have three guys that are 6’6” or better. We gotta put a body on him and be physical. We know he is physical. Every time he touches the ball, he has to earn his points.

Despite Arnett being roughed up, the Rams were always within striking distance. With 10 seconds to go and only down two, the Rams got a turnover and had a chance to win with a three or to tie with a bucket in the paint.

It wasn’t to be. The Rams turned it over with a few seconds left without getting up a shot. A foul with 1.8 to play lead to a DeLaSalle made free throw making the final 40-37.

The Rams host the Steve Pappas Shootout on Saturday (January 8, 2022) and will take on Homewood-Flossmoor.  

As for the photos, I tried something a little different. I used a 50mm, f1.8 prime lens on a second camera body instead of the usual 24-70mm, f2.8. I wanted to do something different. I don’t think it made any difference. At least know I know.

DePaul Prep Falls to Timothy Christian 7-6 in 2A Sectional Semi-final

I love high school baseball. It’s just so much fun to go and see baseball for free under the lights in the evening. It’s like having a minor league baseball team, or teams , in the neighborhood to go see in the evening.

But the season is over. It was fun while it lasted.

On Monday, the DePaul Prep Rams won their 2A IHSA Regional against University of Chicago Lab School at Kerry Wood Field earning.

On Wednesday, they fell to Timothy Christian 7-6 is a very exciting extra inning affair. I apologize for not having the time to do a write up on the game. However, I took photos. This is mostly a photo blog. I have to use my time to get better at photos. I write an article now and again for Inside Publications. I would love to do more but I just don’t have the time. Maybe next year.

I hope you like the photos. And I still have photos from the U. of C. that I will publish as time allows.

DePaul Prep Drops Disney 13-1, a Year Ago

I was looking for some other photos and I noticed that I never processed the photos from the playoff game between DePaul Prep and Disney last spring. The DePaul Prep Rams eliminated Disney 13-1 in the IHSA regional playoff game.

Maybe this will help with some baseball withdrawal.

As I recall, I was using my 300mm, f5.6 lens. I typically only use this lens in bright light situations. This late afternoon game was not a good situation for this. I had to limit the shutter speed to 1/1000. Way to slow as one can tell from the blurry baseball shots. I hope you appreciate that I publish these photos despite them being such good evidence of just how crappy a photographer I am.

Nevertheless, there are some good ones. I hope you like them.

St. Ignatius Defeats DePaul Prep 10-2

The DePaul Prep Rams hosted the St. Ignatius Wolfpack Saturday (April 13, 2019) afternoon at Kerry Wood Field. The Wolfpack hitters were crushing the baseball, scoring two runs each in the first three innings. As is their way, the Rams keep fighting but could not come back, ultimately falling to St. Ignatius—10-2.

This had to be the high school baseball game with more well hit baseballs than any other I have seen. The Wolfpack absolutely pasted the baseball. Triple to the gap after triple to the gap after triple to the gap. St. Ignatius catcher J. Loftus hit a ball that I thought might leave Kerry Wood Field. I have never even seen one come close to hitting the fence. I had to watch to see if would go out. It didn’t.

St. Ignatius student photographer, junior Luke Hales, made his way up to the 47th Ward’s Kerry Wood Field for the game. He got some bad info on the start time and arrived a little later for the 4:00 p.m., start time. It didn’t much matter. He got some great shots. Luke is a very talented photographer and he’s like 16 years old. He knows how to operate the camera. Great color on his photos. He is developing an eye for composition.

My photos are not my best work. I struggled a little with the late afternoon light and shadows. The manual ISO was a problem. I should have gone auto. Nevertheless, shooting the game was useful. The photos might be ordinary, or worse, but I learned something.

St. Rita Defeats DePaul Prep 12-0.

No other way to put this, the DePaul Prep Rams took a shellacking at the hands of the St. Rita Mustangs, 12-0, at Kerry Wood Field Saturday morning. I wasn’t there to write a story so I am a little short on details. The details wouldn’t be pretty anyway.

I was there to get some good daylight baseball photos. There was a low haze this late morning. A little overcast too. I set up the 5D with the 24-300mm 5.6 to get some behind the plate. I set the shutter speed at 1/2000. It worked. I got some good shots with a frozen baseball. I had to push the ISO to 400 but that doesn’t make much of a difference on a full frame 5D Mark IV. The photos from the 70-200mm 2.8 are noticeably sharper that the 24-300. I really need to get one of those 300mm 2.8 lenses.

I wanted to settle on the best positions for baseball as well. It seems that the first and third base sides just back the dugouts are the best place for the most shots. Behind the plate is only good for photos of the pitcher. One can’t get good shots of action in the field from there.

So here are the photos. I have a lot more work to do getting good photos of this year’s edition of Rams Baseball.

DePaul Prep v. Peoria Richwoods

These are not my best photos. I had not planned to shoot this game. I knew I could not stay. I was driving by, my camera was in the trunk, so I thought I would stop and take a few photos. I used the 24-300mm, f5.6. Not the right lens for night baseball but I thought I would give it a try. This pushed the ISO too high making the photos grain and not sharp.

Okay, excuses out of the way, I got lucky on a few. I will be back to get some good ones when I can plan it out better and use the proper equipment.

Stay tuned.