Area teams hitting road to find action

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In what seems like an annual rite of early spring, high school baseball teams have had to contend with cold and wintry weather throughout the Chicago area as they attempt to begin their seasons.

However, in the past week four area teams followed a growing trend and headed south in an attempt to beat the conditions.

Burlington Central, St. Edward, Westminster Christian and St. Charles North all spent part of their spring breaks on trips to southern Illinois, where they scheduled several games against downstate teams.

While Westminster and North have embarked on spring trips before, this marks the first such journey for Central and St. Edward, and it appears more Chicago area teams are following suit by scheduling opportunities to battle downstate opponents instead of staying home to battle frigid temperatures and the occasional dusting of snow.

"Last year I didn't really know of any other teams that came down here for spring break, but this year I've seen Kaneland and Lake Zurich," North coach Todd Genke said after his team played a pair of games in Marion on Friday. "The trip really works well because you can fund raise for it, make a little money, put together a road trip, get some games in and build up some team chemistry.

"Temperatures are a little bit warmer down here and there's some good baseball down here, so we're very happy that we came down and got four games in that we probably wouldn't have if we had stayed home."

For a small Class 1A school like Westminster, the spring trip offers an opportunity to square off against like-sized schools that are largely concentrated in the southern part of the state.

However, the opportunity to play fellow northern Illinois schools is available, as was evidenced when crosstown rivals Westminster and St. Edward took the field against one another Thursday in Goreville, which is located 367 miles south of Elgin.

With more and more teams scheduling trips during spring break, both Genke and Westminster coach Jeff Moeller said they plan on talking with their downstate counterparts about setting up future spring-break tournaments involving teams from all over the state.

"We've built really good relationships down here with Harrisburg and Goreville and Vienna," Moeller said. "I'd like to hook up and get a tournament going because there are a lot of northern teams that are down here at this time of year. A tournament-type setting might make things a little more fun and a little more competitive."

Although spring-like conditions are easier to find in southern Illinois in late March, North and Central both learned weather woes can't be entirely discounted.

Genke said his team almost returned home Thursday without playing a game because of the wet field conditions left behind by heavy rains in the St. Louis area. However, the North Stars were saved when the opportunity arose to play at the state-of-the-art Rent One Park, which is home to the Frontier League's Southern Illinois Miners.

Meanwhile, rain kept Central from completing four of its five scheduled games during its trip to the St. Louis area and Urbana, but that didn't dampen Rockets coach Kyle Nelson's enthusiasm for spring-break trips.

"It didn't work out quite as well as we'd have liked, but I think we'll probably try it again in the future," Nelson said.