Hancock has some advantages many Public League baseball programs can only dream of.
The Eagles play at Hale Park on the Southwest Side, using a diamond with an artificial turf infield. Hale is also the home of the 72-year-old Clear Ridge Little League, which has a legacy of success.
And Hancock has a more experienced roster than most city teams, even though it has just four seniors. Several Eagles play high-level travel baseball, and the freshmen in the lineup against visiting Lake View on March 28 all had played before high school.
All of these are reasons first-year coach Rich Petroski is bullish on his team’s chances, even as it navigates a stronger and busier schedule than Hancock has faced in the past. The Eagles played only one nonconference game last season en route to an 8-11 finish.
Hancock lost 9-0 to Lake View and fell 4-2 to Washington the next day to drop to 1-5 after starting the season with a 21-1 win against TF North.
Freshman Robert Morales went 2-for-3 against Lake View and junior Ryan Ostrowski slugged a double.
“I had four freshmen starting (against Lake View) and then my last pitcher was a sophomore,” Petroski said. “My starting pitcher was a freshman. I’m a really young team.
“But my thing is, we battle and that’s all I can ask from these kids. They want to compete. … We had a down day, just hitting-wise. But I think we can compete against anybody.”
Petroski never coached high-school baseball before this season, though he’s been involved in travel ball. But he was the head football and wrestling coach at now-closed St. Joseph and led the Chargers to their only IHSA football playoff berth in 2016.
At Hancock, he sees another promising opportunity.
“I love baseball,” he said. “I saw the opening and I saw what they did last year. And I saw that they were very young. That’s an opportunity that I could get to grow the kids … into what I want them to be.”
The Eagles play in the second tier of Public League baseball in the American South. The conference winner has the option to move up to the top-level Jackie Robinson South next season and Petroski believes that’s a reasonable goal.
“I don’t see why we can’t compete for this conference championship,” he said. “And if I get the conference championship, I am moving up. Because my thing is, these kids deserve it.”