[Preview of this week’s Inside—Booster story.]
By Jack Lydon
It was senior day at Kerry Wood Cubs Field, Thursday afternoon for the Lane Tech Champions. Many times it can be a struggle for graduation seniors to get a win at home on on senior day.
Not this time. This group of Champion seniors came out fired up.
Lane Tech put 10 runs on a very good Walter Payton College Prep Grizzlies group that came into the game was 14-9-1 and in 4th place in the Chicago Public League’s Jackie Robinson North conference.
It didn’t take long for this group of seniors to put runs on the board, well not actually on the scoreboard. The scoreboard at Kerry Wood remains broken as it has been for years. The Champions scored six runs in the bottom of the first and four more runs in the bottom of the second capped off by a long home run over the left field fence by senior first baseman Zolan Wyatt.
“I didn’t think I got all of it. It was off the end [of the bat]. But I am glad it went. I was just trying to get an RBI for the team,” Wyatt said. That was his third home run this year.
The Champions added eight more runs in the bottom of third ending the slaughter rule shortened game after three and half innings at 18-0 Lane.
Not this group of seniors. Not this special Lane team. They were just fired up by it and come out bounding the ball
“The seniors were hungry and wanted to win and I am glad we did,” Zolan Wyatt continued.
“This was really nice and really special because of all the seniors. I told them, ‘I get it. I know it’s your day but on the baseball end of things you want to win and play well.’ I was really happy to see that we got a lead early. It makes some of the move you want to make to get everybody in a lot easier to do,” said Lane Tech head coach Sean Freeman.
With the hard part of conference play behind them and the conference championship wrapped up, one cannot help but look forward to the CPL City Championship tournament that starts this week. It is particularly special for this group of seniors because the championship game will be held at Wrigley Field on May 21st.
When asked if he was looking forward to playing at Wrigley Field, Zolan Wyatt said, “Absolutely. It’s a dream. Just to be able to get on the field. We have got to take it game by game. Can’t take it that far ahead.”
With the Champions improving their record to 24-4 overall and 14-0 in the conference, it’s hard not to look ahead. A conference championship game at Wrigley Field seems quite likely. It would be hard for high school boys not to think about playing at Wrigley Field.
But Lane Tech has bigger thoughts and expectations. They also have a chance to get to the IHSA State Championship in Joliet this year. Stay tuned.
