GREEN BAY — The Green Bay Rockers of the Northwoods league are flying through their season, sitting at 10-22 overall entering Friday night.
Right now, they only have one local kid on their team, pitcher Will Semb who pitched for De Pere high school and now plays for the Minnesota Gophers. He’s enjoying his time with Rockers and being so close to home.
“When i was younger it was the Green Bay Bullfrogs, obviously and just kind of being a kid who liked baseball, I’d always watched them and they seemed like they were a lot older at the time, it was kind of something that I wanted to do and now I am doing what they (did),” he said,
The soon to be junior with the Gophers underwent Tommy John surgery when he was a junior with De Pere and is still trying to find his groove after his surgery and transferring after a COVID impacted year with Iowa.
“This really was the first year that I got that exposure and I could really get in the games and get adjusted to everything,” said Semb.
He has a four pitch mix, a fastball that reaches the high 90’s, a changeup, a curve and slider. With the Rockers he can focus on working on minor things.
“Working on my offspeed stuff,” Semb said. “Coming back from Tommy John, that's something that you’re not able to do right away. That's still something I’m working on, just continue to get better and get more comfortable.”
For Semb it’s nice to be close to home and play with players from all around the country.
“It's really cool. Everyday you play so you get to work day in and day out and try different things. A lot of guys come from really big programs from around the country. You can kind of pick their brains and see what they do and see if that works for you and kind of implement it.”
Semb says he has players over for dinner at his family's house and a lot of his teammates are surprised at how small Green Bay feels. Newly graduated, Notre Dame’s Caden Capomaccio will be joining the Rockers soon and he will also be playing with Semb at the University of Minnesota next season.
