By Bobby Black – Staff Reporter

The Jonathan Law baseball team recently finished off its spring season with a record of 7-11. 

The team had a solid season under head coach Mr. Simler and captains Luke Pleimann and Mark Lombardi. The Law team made it to the Class M State Tournament, where they lost in the first round to Northwestern Regional High School. 

“This season we improved a lot by focusing on our defense and hitting,” Simler said.

The varsity team lost earlier in the season to cross-town rival Foran High School, but beat them 7-4 in the rematch .

“I feel our hitting and defense improved drastically this season. Our pitching was strong throughout the season, but our bats started to wake up toward the end which resulted in us making states,” junior Jaden Wywoda said. 

Law won four out of its last five games played, scoring 36 runs throughout the stretch of games before entering the state tournament. In those five games, they only allowed 17 runs, with the most being six in one game. 

This year was a unique year because of the impact of COVID-19 and the safety regulations the team had to follow.

COVID-19 has been an issue for high school sports this year with mask restrictions, bus spacing for travel games, and restrictions on the use of the dugout, but toward the end of the season those restrictions had loosened up.

Players were no longer required to wear masks on the field and they only had to wear them in team meetings and in the dugout. 

“We followed all given protocols, and we were able to finish our season despite it,” Wywoda said.

One highlight of the 2021 Law baseball season was the new turf field. In the season opener at home against Hillhouse/Career, Law won 12-2.

The team has many years to look forward to playing on the turf field.

“Every player will hopefully work hard this off-season to improve on their play this year, coming into next year better than previous years,” Wywoda said. 

Simler is excited with the roster that will return next spring.

“Going into the 2022 season we will be returning many players with varsity experience and players from our junior varsity and 9th grade teams that will contribute at the varsity level,” Simler said.