LEOPOLD LOOKS TO MAKE WINONA SING THE BLUES

Leopold High baseball coach Ted LeGrand is leaving nothing to chance as the Wildcats make their first-ever appearance in the Class 1A sectional round.

On Saturday, LeGrand drove 120 miles one way to Winona -- even though the local squad did not have a game -- simply to check out the field where today's 4 p.m. sectional contest will be played.

"I just wanted to get a feel for where we'd be playing," said LeGrand. "It's a short fence, about 260 feet to left and about 280 feet to right, so hopefully our guys won't try to hit everything out."

There is certainly quite a buzz around the Leopold baseball program these days as the Wildcats won their first-ever district title last week. They'll put their 11-6 record on the line against 15-2 Winona, whose nickname is also the Wildcats.

"We're very excited," said LeGrand. "The seniors are really getting excited, but everybody is looking forward to it."

LeGrand said he expected his squad to have a solid season and the Wildcats haven't disappointed him.

"Going into the season, I thought we could make it to the district championship game, and then when they seeded for districts (Leopold received the top seed), I thought we'd win it," he said. "I feel real good about the season we've had, but you get to this level, and you know it's going to be tough."

Leopold features two of the area's leaders in brothers Jason Van de Ven and Josh Van de Ven, the latter just a freshman.

Jason Van de Ven, Leopold's ace pitcher with a 6-4 record who will start today, is first in the area in innings pitched (64), earned-run average (1.75) and strikeouts (97).

"He's done real well for us all year," LeGrand said. "He should be at least the caliber of the best pitchers Winona has seen, if not better."

Josh Van de Ven is the area's top hitter with a .519 average. Lee Vandermierden (.492) and Ashton James (.462) also rank among the area's leading batters.

Scott VanGennip and Jason Van de Ven also bat well over .300 for a Leopold squad that hits in the .350 range as a team. Garan Engelen is tops on the squad in runs batted in with 24 while Vandermierden has 20 RBIs.

"Our hitting has been strong all year," said LeGrand.

So has Winona's as that bunch of Wildcats features an almost unheard of .471 team batting average, led by Brian Simpson, Jarod Kelly and Matt Crabtree, who are all above .500.

Simpson has 15 home runs, which is nearly twice as many homers as Leopold has as a team, but as LeGrand pointed out, the Winona field is small.

"I've got 10 kids who bat very good this year," said Winona coach Pete Wakefield. "We win a lot of ballgames with our batting, but our pitching is not as good as it should be."

Wakefield said his team uses four pitchers quite often and he's not sure who will start today. Winona's primary hurlers are Robert Neal, Charles Neal, Kelly and Simpson.

Said LeGrand of today's opponent, "We know they can score some runs, but we've heard their pitching might not be that strong. I know they'll have a very good team, though."