Hinsdale High School Players Showcase Their Skills

LINCOLNSHIRE—Throughout the years, and have always enjoyed a good rivalry in several sports, including baseball.

However, players from both squads put their rivalry aside and became teammates last weekend.

Sam Lucente of Hinsdale Central joined forces with Hinsdale South’s , P.J. Schuster and Sean Beesley as part of the West Suburban Conference team that competed in the annual Northwest Suburban Baseball Tournament held at Stevenson High School.

The tourney is a two-day event in which all-star teams from eight different conferences showcase next year’s seniors. Other participating conferences included the DuPage Valley, East Suburban Catholic, Central Suburban, Fox Valley, North Suburban, Upstate Eight and Mid Suburban. 

Players on each squad saw action in two games—one on Friday; one on Saturday—and each player was timed in the 60-yard dash prior to Friday’s games. Dozens of baseball coaches and scouts from various colleges and universities throughout the Midwest could be seen behind the backstops at both Stevenson baseball fields taking notes and aiming their JUGS radar guns to determine a pitcher’s velocity.

“It’s fun to watch,” said Hinsdale Central coach Justin Cronin, who was part of the West Suburban coaching staff. “You get to see a lot of these guys once, maybe three times depending if you’re playing a conference series. It’s good to see these guys and it’s a good group. They enjoy being out here. It’s fun and it’s a good experience because you get to see guys not as an opponent.

"It’s a good chance for somebody to play well, and you never know down the line.”

Lucente played the majority of both games at third base for the West Suburban team, which faced the DuPage Valley on Friday and the North Suburban squad on Saturday. He singled during Friday’s matchup.

“We had great team chemistry,” Lucente said. “It was fun playing with these guys. You face them in the regular season and you’re going against them, but then it’s fun playing with them.”

Lucente, who also played the outfield and pitched for the Red Devils in 2011, will be one of the team’s top players when it takes the field for the 2012 season.

He’s busy working on his game throughout the summer with two teams. During the week, Lucente suits up with the Hinsdale Central summer league team, and on weekends, he plays for the DuPage Dragons.

When asked what aspects of his game he’s trying to improve, Lucente replied, “Probably just fielding mostly. I have the bat speed to go, so just fielding as many ground balls as I can.”

Hinsdale South

Morris, who catches and plays second base for Hinsdale South, ended up behind the plate for every inning of West Suburban’s two nine-inning contests. The team’s other catcher, Jack Picchiotti of Oak Park-River Forest, was in Cincinnati playing for his travel team and couldn’t make the Northwest Suburban tourney.

“I had a tournament out there, too,” said Morris, who plays for the Illinois Sparks 17U travel team. “But I chose to come here because I thought it would be a good time and it proved to be a good time.”

No doubt, Morris attracted some attention during West Suburban’s game vs. the DuPage Valley. He doubled off the left-field fence in the first inning, and had an RBI single in the third.

Morris, a three-year varsity player, said he would like to play college baseball after graduation.

“It’s definitely something I want to do,” he said. “I liked everyone around here; it was a nice setup and a nice crowd. I felt like we all got a chance to showcase what we have with the two games.

“It shows how good our conference is compared to other conferences. I like the camaraderie.”

Morris’ teammates got an opportunity on Friday to strut their stuff, too. Beesley, an outfielder for the Hornets, and Schuster, a left-handed pitcher, batted back-to-back in the fourth inning, with Schuster grounding a single to left field. Schuster also picked off a runner while pitching in the sixth.

Named to the all-West Suburban Conference team, Morris rebounded from an injury-plagued sophomore year to hit .392 this season with 39 RBIs.

He suffered a severe right knee injury playing football during the fall of 2009—one where he tore his anterior cruciate ligament, the posterior cruciate ligament and the medial collateral ligament. He underwent surgery that October and missed the first 10 games of the 2010 baseball season, yet played the remainder of the year.

“I didn’t do as well as I did [my freshman year], but I feel blessed to have the opportunity to still play the game,” he said. “It [rehab] was a little frustrating, but I had my goals; I knew what I had to get back to if I ever wanted to play again. I give credit to my surgeon and therapist to work with me and motivate me.”

Like Lucente, Morris is doing double duty this summer, playing for the Sparks on the weekends and the Hornets’ summer league team during the week.

“The only way to get better is to play every day and to learn from the situations,” he said. “You can do a lot of work in practice, but nothing can replace a true game situation.”