Preseason Power 25 Countdown: No. 14 Huntley

KEY LOSSES

Kyle Morgan, LHP (McHenry County JC)
Nick Laxner, RHP (Kankakee CC)
Jordan Goldstein, SS/UTL (Dubuque)
Grant Yakimisky, RHP (Wisconsin-Oshkosh)
Kamrin Hoffman, UTL/C (Benedictine, IL)
Matt Rodriguez, 1B/DH
Chris Costantino, OF (Loras College)
Joey Petryniec, OF (Wisconsin-Oshkosh)
Anthony Zak, 2B (Ripon College)
Diego Solares, RHP (Carthage College)

NEWCOMER TO WATCH

At our annual McHenry Preseason I.D. event from Pro Player Academy, Huntley junior Jimmy Fairley showed our staff a starter’s profile. His late, sinking fastball sits in the low 80s and he complements it with an 11/5, biting curveball. His changeup features that familiar sink, thrown at arm speed. This arsenal is going to be welcome to Huntley’s rotation this spring, one that's missing two of its go-to arms from a season ago en route to last year's 4A title game.

The Red Raiders have the depth in their junior class to pick up the pieces without missing a beat on a team that set its program’s record for wins in a season, and Fairley’s contributions are integral to the team repeating that kind of success. It’s not often that the state runners-up have a pragmatic chance to get back to the state tournament in consecutive seasons, but this Huntley team looks a lot like they did last year. Even though they’re missing the two arms that got them there in 2018, Fairley and his 2020 classmates are exactly what Huntley needs to ignite another run back.

X-FACTOR

Fairley isn’t expected to become the new Red Raiders’ ace or anything, but the depth he and the rest of this 2020 class provides will blanket the holes on this season’s edition of Huntley. Two-way senior prospect Hunter Rumachik has both the varsity success and the overall stuff to take on the new No. 1 role. The McHenry County JC commit was probably Huntley’s most versatile player last spring – making him among their most valuable, too.

Rumachik was the team’s everyday first baseman when he wasn’t pitching. From the left-handed batter’s box, the lanky and athletic 6-foot-4 prospect offers some pull-side pop and will inject the middle of this lineup with his ability to manufacture runs – he stole 15 bases last year, as well. We’ve yet to see Rumachik work on the mound in person, but he strung together a solid year for the Red Raiders, statistically. In 32.2 innings, the lefty maintained an ERA of 1.50 and struck out 29 batters, notching four saves last spring. It remains to be seen how he’ll be utilized exactly on the staff, but he figures to be one of the team’s most important arms in one way or another.

Hunter Rumachik (6.12.18)

OUTLOOK

The 2018 Red Raiders squad is among the best teams Huntley has ever produced, which is saying something for the accomplished program sitting on the outskirts of the northwest suburbs of Chicago. This program perennially competes for Fox Valley titles and has won their conference in consecutive springs, and is coming off a 33-win season, a single-season school record.

Led by two seniors in the rotation, fused by a mixture of tough at-bats, Huntley climbed their way all the way to the state championship game against Plainfield North. Despite out-hitting the Tigers 10-6, Plainfield North just edged out the Red Raiders for the 4A title, with a 4-3 final score.

Losing the indomitable southpaw Kyle Morgan hurts. The lefty is at McHenry County JC these days and left his mark as one of the most competitive prep pitchers in the state. His feisty demeanor really paced the Red Raiders in 2018, and will be next to impossible to replace. But despite losing a hefty number of everyday contributors, Huntley’s dugout still looks pretty familiar. The juniors this team relied on last year are now seniors, a year older with big-game experience under their belts.

Joining Rumachik as returnees back into the everyday lineup: Michael Talesky, A.J. Henkle, Zach Model, and Jason Peters. Talesky operated as Huntley’s lead-off man last spring and is confident in the right-handed box, and isn’t afraid to swing hard – he hit .364 in his junior campaign. Henkle tallied two hits in the state title game, hit .342 as a junior, and recorded the most runs scored (35) and RBIs (26) of the returning Red Raiders. Peters was another junior to hit well over .300 (.366), and also led the four aforementioned with seven doubles and a pair of homers in 2018.

Also, junior Evan Tocmo managed to find the field every once in awhile as a sophomore on last year’s Huntley team, despite the depth it had all over the field. That’s a credit to Tocmo’s natural baseball instincts. He’ll probably be an everyday contributor for the Red Raiders in 2019, with the ability to bounce all over the diamond defensively, compounded by his feel from the right-handed batter’s box.

Offensively, the stability retained in the team’s daily lineup is going to be a huge factor in their attempt to get back to state – only this time, head home to Huntley with silverware.

The losses of Morgan and Nick Laxner on the mound is going to take some overcoming.

Rumachik could take over as the team's No. 1, but there’s definitely a shortage of obvious replacements the spots right behind him. Fairley is certainly going to be in the running to be Huntley’s new No. 2, but keep an eye on juniors Tommy Giese and James Sibert, too. Giese, specifically, was invited to our Preseason All-State event last month (with Tocmo, actually), and sat in the low 80s with his running fastball. He has been up to 85 mph in the past in front of our staff, and his projectable and lean 6-foot-4 frame suggests there might be more in the tank to tease out.

And seniors Eli Papalanus and Kyle Maurer are also back in the rotation. Papalanus is an MSOE commit and is returning the most innings of any pitcher on staff (37.1). He groomed a lowly 1.69 ERA last spring and will be a dependable piece for head coach Andy Jakubowski to use this year, too, and might even emerge as the new No. 1, rather than Rumachik. As for Maurer, he didn’t pitch too much as a junior last spring, but he’s an athlete on the mound who repeats well, and only sturdies this staff that is going to look different than the one that helped them march to Joliet last year.

Two-way seniors like Davis Pasco, Dylan Janke, and Jackson Broom will bolster both the backs of the lineup and staff, as well.

BOTTOM LINE

The Fox Valley Conference is sneakily one of the IHSA’s toughest. It has produced two of the last four state title finalists (Crystal Lake South, 2017) and is inundated with quality programs up and down the standings. This year, the FVC doesn’t look quite as intimidating, but it’s still going to be a slog, with the likes of Quinn Priester and Cary-Grove, a throwback Prairie Ridge, an annually hard-nosed McHenry squad, and a Jacobs team that won 13 conference games last spring standing in the way.

But it’d be hard to call Huntley anything but the favorite of the group. Coach Jakubowski has restocked the lineup and will have the arms to plug the gaps left by last year’s top two pitchers. It’s an experienced lineup that feeds off each other in the batter’s box, so don’t be surprised to see the Red Raiders challenge for a place back in the state tournament in 2019.

Make sure to follow @PBRIllinois on Twitter for the most up-to-date coverage throughout the 2019 season.

Find more information on the 2019 Red Raiders below:
+ Full Schedule
+ Team Website
+ GameChanger
+ Team Twitter

PRESEASON POWER 25 COUNTDOWN