LF_070518

28 | July 5, 2018 | The lake forest leader SPORTS
LakeForestLeader.com
softball Coach of the Year
Loyola coach’s ‘small-ball’
approach secures award
Michael Wojtychiw, Contributing Sports Editor
Since its 2009 IHSA state championship,
Loyola Academy’s softball program
has been a sleeping giant.
In coach Michelle Farrell-Fink’s four
years at the helm, the Ramblers had never
won more than 17 games or made it to a
regional final. That all changed in Farrell-
Fink’s fifth year as the squad exploded offensively.
Loyola sprinted to a cool 20-9 record
before it dropped a heartbreaker to Carmel
Catholic High School, 7-2, in its own
regional final.
“I always say softball’s a game of failure
and we had two options from the year
before,” Farrell-Fink said. “Give in and
just have another year like the previous
year and the years in the past – which
weren’t awful years, but we weren’t .500
last year – or we learn from our mistakes
and we get better.”
Farrell-Fink saw the seniors step up to
the plate, figuratively and literally, and
combined four years of hard work into
something spectacular. In the first five
games of the season the Ramblers out
scored their opponents 82-9, went 5-0 for
their start and easily won their seasonopening
game against Taft 15-0.
“I think it just started from them saying,
‘This is our year, this is our last year. How
do we want it to end?’” she said. “Everyone
stuck to what they were saying.”
Farrell-Fink’s ability to inspire her team
to achieve their best earned her the inaugural
22nd Century Media Softball Coach
of the Year award.
Another big reason for the Ramblers’
success this season was the contributions
of loaded sophomore and freshman classes.
Freshman players like KK Raymond,
Nyah Moore and Emily Rivero started on
a consistent basis and had a big impact on
what Loyola was able to do.
“They played pretty good travel ball,
so I would say they are used to a higher
level of softball,” the coach said. “Just in
preseason work, they adjusted really well
by us pushing them.”
Farrell-Fink had two seniors, Nora
Conway and Alexis Rocha, who were
four-year varsity players. Conway helped
Loyola coach Michelle Farrell-Fink gives
encouragement to Riley Bendery as she
rounds third base. PHOTO SUBMITTED
explain what it was like seeing her coach
progress during her time at the school.
“Offensively and defensively, she knew
what had to be done, where we had to be
positioned,” Conway said. “If someone
was out of position, they changed where
we were. It was just an overall help to have
that and it wasn’t just us doing it ourselves.
We had her and her past experience helping
us throughout the whole season.
Farrell-Fink said that at the beginning of
the year one of the team’s big focus points
was stringing together hits. In previous
seasons, the team would be able to get hits,
but scattered and not together in any way.
That changed this year and it was evident
with some of the scores the Ramblers
put up. Loyola scored double-digit runs
in 12 of its 20 wins and did it as more of
a “small-ball” team, hitting singles and
doubles, walking, instead of trying to hit
home runs.
“We really were able to get those runners
in by stringing together the hits and really
focusing on just keeping that ball in the
ballpark and hitting those hard line drives,
hard ground balls, getting singles, doubles,
and putting the ball in play making the other
team work,” Farrell-Fink added.
Both Conway and Farrell-Fink said a
game that will always stick out in their
minds is the team’s come-from-behind win
over Montini, who went on to win the state
title this season.
With the young talent the Ramblers
have returning, it’s fair to say that Loyola
will be in store for more of those types of
wins and deep runs into the playoffs with
Farrell-Fink at the helm.
Baseball Coach of the Year
Loyola’s Bridich keeps program steady
Michal Dwojak, Contributing Sports Editor
Nick Bridich is living the coach’s
dream, at least part of it.
The Loyola Academy baseball coach
has spent five years building his program
the way he wants it and he’s seeing the
fruits of his labor. Loyola has improved
with each year, making strides, culminating
in the 2018 season where the Ramblers
won a sectional championship and
came a game shy of making it to the
state’s final four.
Bridich’s plan and his team’s accomplishments
showed the resiliency he’s
helped instill to his program, which
helped earn him 22nd Century Media inaugural
Baseball Coach of the Year honor.
“I’m really humbled and honored, and to
be honest, I don’t think it’s something that
should be directed at me,” Bridich said. “I
think so much of the credit of where our
program is going has to do with great student-athletes,
kids who have worked really
hard and players who’ve dedicated themselves
to themselves and what they love,
which is baseball and getting better.
“It’s an honor but it’s an award that
goes out to the players and coaching staff
as well.”
The Ramblers started the season strong,
winning their first five games, and getting
into a groove that lasted an entire season.
But once the conference season started,
the competition started to get stronger and
Bridich learned who his team truly was.
Loyola competed in nine games this
season that were decided by a run, and
far more with less than three runs. The
team won five of those one-run games,
but learned what it took to be a team that
would eventually make a deep run in the
playoffs. The Ramblers faced adversity
throughout the season with these tight
games, which Bridich knew he could use
as lessons to help the Ramblers learn what
it took to win in a game like baseball,
where many follow the cliche of taking
the season one game at a time.
“I think the level of experience our guys
had going through the ups and downs and
understanding a true mentality to play very
balanced baseball where you’re not giving
up,” Bridich said. “It definitely put us in
a position to have confidence in the playoffs.”
While tight games helped the Ramblers
learn how to compete in the postseason,
they barely faced any tight games during
Loyola Academy baseball coach Nick
Bridich earned 22nd Century Media’s
Baseball Coach of the Year after leading
his Ramblers team to the final eight.
Photo submitted
their playoff run. Loyola defeated Notre
Dame to win the regional title 4-1 and won
the sectional title against Evanston 9-3 but
ultimately fell short to Huntley in the super-sectional,
losing 8-4.
Bridich didn’t treat this season any differently
than he has in the past. Each team
is different, filled with various talents that
can’t be copied for the next season, but
he’s seen the progress to know that his
program is headed in the right direction.
“Every season is different based on the
group of guys you have,” Bridich said.
“Every year we’ve been building and improving
on the year before. I think there
were a lot of guys who played as juniors
and there was a lot of experience coming
back. They had a clear understanding of
what it takes to be really competitive on
a daily basis. I think they were ready and
confident and knew they could beat anybody
on any given day.”
Bridich is happy to be in the position
he is. The Ramblers have made improvements
each year under his helm, and the
future seems like it’ll continue that trend.
Loyola returns talent next season and will
showcase players opponents haven’t seen
yet.
The coach is right where he wants to be.
“It’s a nice place to be: winning a sectional
and being in the last eight teams and
all those type of things are great things,”
Bridich said. “We’re just really working
at it every single day and moving on to
improve, that’s the fun part of it.”