Hitters are needed for St. Bede baseball Bruins

SPRING VALLEY — John Bellino returns for another season at the helm of the Bruins baseball team with eight seniors. While Bellino welcomes those eight, he says hitting and fielding will be the biggest questions as far as what it will take to make a run at the Academy’s first regional title since 2001.

St. Bede did make it to the regional championship game last year, but fell to a very strong Coal City team 16-1.

The Bruins lost a lot of hitting due to the graduation of Adam and Noah Emmerling and Jimmy Polster, who is now playing baseball at Rockford College.

Bellino will be looking to some of his returning lettermen to fill those vacancies in the batting order.

One will be returning leadoff hitter Jordan Jereb. Jereb has the speed to cause some headaches when he gets on base.

The speed factor doesn’t stop there, though, as Andy Bellino returns valuable experience as well as patrolling center field for the Bruins.

Unlike last year, the Bruins do have some experience back on the pitching mound.

Jereb is the top returning pitcher for St. Bede along with Tyler Duffel, after the Bruins lost Ty Potthoff to graduation, and Eric Safranski, who transferred to Putnam County.

Jereb is the Bruins control pitcher and provides St. Bede with a lot of ability on the mound, as he showed in the 7-0 opening game victory at Bureau Valley.

Jereb went three nearly flawless innings, allowing just one base runner to reach base while striking out six along the way.

Mark Pyszka is another one that Bellino needs to step up at the plate and on the mound for the Bruins.

Pyszka appears to be fully recovered from a knee injury that slowed him a bit in 2007. He has size and speed, and if he controls his pitches, he will be a big asset for Bellino and company.

Milner pitched some last year on the varsity level, and Bellino will be looking to see if they can develop pitchers, and not just throwers on the mound.

While St. Bede’s first two games of the year were rained out, the Bruins still play a tough, big school dominated schedule along with a very tough Tri-County schedule.