Northwestern Baseball Motivated Heading Into Spring Season

The Tigers will open the season on Tuesday hosting Barron. First pitch is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. 

MAPLE, Wis. – Last week, high school spring sports made their return to the state of Wisconsin and now, it’s game week for the Northwestern baseball team, who is hungry to pick up where they left off in 2019.

“There’s some nerves, some excitement. We’ve been practicing for weeks now and we’re ready to go,” senior third baseman Brennen Werner said.

Northwestern will be a young team this season, with just three seniors and one junior.

“This is one of the hardest working teams I’ve seen. Everyone’s been putting in the work, there’s been texts going around asking to go to the field, get more reps in as much as we can,” Werner said.

“They’re young but there’s a lot of talent and we have high hopes of going back to competing for a conference championship and moving on from there,” head coach Matt Ronchi added.

The Tigers were ready for another big year in 2020 after winning conference and regional championships in 2019. Then, COVID-19 canceled the season.

“Missing out last year was bad. We worked really hard and this year we’ve worked even harder because we know this is our last go around,” senior infielder Dylan Ronchi said.

Despite the lack of varsity experience, Northwestern is using last year’s team as motivation to make another run.

“When we go out there and win a conference championship this year, it’s going to be for the people who came before us,” Dylan Ronchi said.

“That gave us some motivation to really prepare this offseason and better ourselves so we can hopefully do what we were supposed to do last year,” Werner added.

“A lot of these kids have seen us advance so far deep in the sectionals, gives them hope that it can happen. the upperclassmen, they’ve been there, they’ve been apart of it, so that’s kind of reassuring to these younger kids like hey we can do it,” Matt Ronchi said.

And it will come with a new head coach, as Matt Ronchi steps in to lead the Tigers with his son Dylan in his senior season.

“It’s special. Him growing up with me all of these years and then my last year he’s going to be there,” Dylan said.

“It’s a little bittersweet. But it’s a great group of kids who love baseball and just to be apart of that, it’s a pretty special thing,” Matt said.

With all of the changes, Northwestern is just ready for the first pitch to be thrown.

“A little cold but it will be alright. It will feel amazing to be back out there for one last go around,” Dylan said.

Northwestern will open the season on Tuesday hosting Barron. First pitch is scheduled for 5:00 p.m.