DE PERE — The De Pere Redbirds baseball team has high expectations this year, as they were one win away from making it to Fox Cities Stadium last year and the year before. Now this year they’re ready to get over the hump.
“We are on the hunt,” said De Pere senior outfielder and pitcher Easton Arendt. “I can tell you that. Getting knocked out in the sectional final two, maybe three years in a row is tough.”
- 8 of 9 starters return from last year's squad that was knocked out of the playoffs by state runner-up Hortonville.
- Returning is FRCC Player of the Year Easton Arendt
- The Redbirds have been one win away from making the state tournament the last two seasons.
8 of 9 starters return from last year's squad that was knocked out of the playoffs by state runner-up Hortonville. The Redbirds finished in a four-way tie for the FRCC crown last year.
“We've probably got 12 all-conference caliber players,” said Redbirds head coach Bob Van Rens. “Unfortunately, you can only have 9 in your lineup at a time. It's a great problem to have. absolutely.”
“1 through 9 all of us can hit and I think that’s a very important role that plays to a successful baseball team,” said senior shortstop Javin Gauthier who will be playing NCAA Division 1 baseball at Valparaiso next year.
The players who returned from a team that went 22-8, they came back hungry.
“I like to tell the kids to be here 15 minutes early. I got here 20 minutes early and today I was probably the thirteenth person here,” Van Rens said. "I was 20 minutes early and I was very late for this group. It’s a really great group of kids that we have here.”
One player in that great group of kids is the returning FRCC Player of the Year Easton Arendt. He’s one of the many seniors returning, a class Van Rens calls ‘the best group of seniors he’s ever had’. He shines on the mound in the outfield and at the plate. Last year he had a batting average of .396 and was 9-1 as pitcher with 2.49 ERA.
“He's just such a competitor,” Van Rens said of the Winona State commit. “When he’s on the mound I wouldn't want anyone else out there.”
“He's incredible,” said Gauthier. “All-around, just an amazing player. Great person. Great teammate."
The team understands there’s high expectations, given that one outlet had them ranked preseason No. 1, but they aren’t thinking about the outside noise.
“We talked about it right away and we’re not going to talk about it again,” Van Rens said. “That ranking means nothing. Everybody is 0-0. We’re just going to have the right process every day – come in, work hard and let the pieces fall where they may.”
As for how they can get over the hump and make it to state:
“We need to not beat ourselves. Every game that we’ve lost, we’ve thought we were better than what we were and we got in our heads and we just didn’t compete the way we could’ve competed to get over that hump.”
The Redbirds host Green Bay Southwest this Thursday in their season opener.
