All by instinct

Neuqua Valley's Jeff Dean looks to his team's dugout as it reacts to his walk-off walk against Naperville North on Saturday at Neuqua. Dean's base on balls drove home the winning run. Terence Guider-Shaw / For The Sun

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Because of the way Neuqua Valley junior Ian Krol plays baseball, he might be one of the last of a dying breed.

Robin Renner believes Krol plays instinctively - not mechanically - an approach the Neuqua coach rarely sees.

"I think kids these days think too much when they're pitching - where their hands are, where their feet are, where's my shoulder, where's my hips, where's this, where's that?" Renner said. "You know what? You work on that stuff in the winter and then when you play you forget about it, because it's supposed to just happen automatically."

With the help of his playing style, Krol was nearly automatic this spring. The junior left-hander coupled a 0.98 ERA with a .479 batting average to claim the 2008 Sun Player of the Year award.

Wanting to test his theory of Krol, Renner told The Sun before practice one day to ask the subject what he thinks about himself as an instinctive player.

"True, that's very true. (But) you know those words wouldn't have come out of my mouth," Krol said. "Those words would have never come out of my mouth. I would have never said that."

Ironically, it's the time spent working on his mechanics this winter that made Krol into a dual-threat this spring.

Krol changed the bulk of his hitting arrangement and got physically stronger in the offseason, and then (as Renner advises) put it all behind him when it came time to play.

"He has the perfect attitude for baseball," Renner said. "He doesn't over think. He just goes out and plays. He just loves to play, plays hard and reacts."

Renner emphasizes this point by saying Krol, at any given time, probably couldn't tell you what kind of pitch he hit during his last at-bat.

To the reactive player, it just doesn't matter. See ball, hit ball. And for that matter, receive pitch, make pitch.

No later than watching catcher Geoff Rowan receive his delivery home does Krol start making his way back to the rubber. Krol would catch the ball in his backpedal up the mound, take his stance, grab the sign from Rowan and set to fire home again.

No thinking, just pitching the way he trained in the offseason.

But how do you keep from second-guessing yourself when things don't go your way?

"Baseball is a very weird game. Things can go wrong, things can go right. You can't really think about anything," Krol said. "When you're pitching, you can't have anything on your mind. You just gotta throw."

Krol threw the Wildcats into the Class 4A state tournament finals for the second straight season. He won four playoff games this year, including a supersectional win over Collinsville and the state's third-place game over Wheaton North.

Backed by an upper-80 mph fastball and biting curveball, Krol finished 9-1 overall with 111 strikeouts in 57 innings pitched (1.95 per inning).

Next year, Krol will have a chance to become the first two-time Sun Player of the Year since Waubonsie Valley's Mike Bowden in 2004 and 2005.