Hanover star makes every at-bat count

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CEDAR LAKE — Andy Wellwerts has struck out 120 batters in 67 innings this season. But can he strike out Hanover Central teammate Nick Bollenbacher?

“Nick? Oh, yeah, I’ll strike him out for sure,” Wellwerts said. “Just fastballs. Yep. Mm-hmm.”

It’d be a heck of a showdown. Because as good as Wellwerts is at racking up strikeouts, Bollenbacher’s even better at avoiding them.

The sure-swinging junior has walked up to the plate more than 80 times this season. He’s walked directly back to the dugout after a strikeout just four times.

It’s so rare, when it happened in last Saturday’s semistate game against Taylor, his teammates were stunned.

“After I got back to the dugout,” Bollenbacher said, “I told everyone, ‘I’m going to hit one out next time, so you’d better be sure you’re on base.’”

Bollenbacher didn’t get another at-bat in that game, a 4-3 Hanover Central victory. So he’s hoping to fulfill that promise in Saturday’s Class 2A state championship game against South Spencer at Victory Field in Indianapolis.

Wellwerts certainly wouldn’t be surprised. He’s been watching Bollenbacher knock the ball all around the park all season to the tune of a .413 batting average and 12 extra-base hits, including four home runs.

Wellwerts credits Bollenbacher’s offseason work with a hitting instructor — and an 8-inch growth spurt — for the big numbers.

“He’s always been a really good hitter, he’s always been over .400,” Wellwerts said. “But this year, he’s hitting with a little power. His freshman and sophomore years, everything would be a blooper. All of his hits would fall into the triangle, when the first baseman, second baseman and right fielder all look at each other and say, ‘I thought you had it.’ But now he’s driving the ball in the gaps. His hard work has really paid off.”

The additional power hasn’t come with the usual cost of additional strikeouts. Bollenbacher whiffed in the season-opener at Lowell, then struck out just one time in Hanover’s next 21 games — a mind-boggling stretch for any player, let alone a high schooler.

“When I go up, that’s the last thing I want to do,” Bollenbacher said. “I just really do not want to strike out. I’d rather put the ball in play and make the defense make a play, get a run or something. Anything but a strikeout.”

Of course, every batter feels that way. Very few manage to do it so successfully.

Bollenbacher’s success comes from a variety of factors. For one, he just sees the ball very well. But just as importantly, he has terrific plate discipline, and has been trained by coach Doug Nelson to lay off the curveballs and wait for a pitch he can drive.

“The old (Ken) Schreiber mentality is you never swing at a curveball until you get two strikes,” Nelson said. “We lay off the curveball because there aren’t too many kids around that can throw it for strikes consistently.”

Using that same fastball-first mentality, Bollenbacher rarely gets himself into deep counts. More often than not, a pitcher’s going to start with a fastball — so why wait?

“As the year’s been going on, I’ve become more of a one-pitch hitter,” Bollenbacher said. “I’m just trying to get my pitch.”

Even with Wellwerts on the hill, the Wildcats might need Bollenbacher and his teammates to be at their best offensively against South Spencer, a team that seemingly has scored at will all season. The Rebels (23-6) hit .412 as a team, and have scored 10 or more runs in 17 of their 29 games. They won their regional semifinal against Linton-Stockton by the preposterous score of 31-10.

But their pitching hasn’t been nearly as dominant. Likely starter Jordan Meece is unbeaten at 9-0, but he’s got a pedestrian ERA of 2.63. In fact, as a team, the Rebels are giving up more than three runs per game. With Wellwerts (9-0, 1.03 ERA) leading the way, Hanover yields 2.48 per game.

And the Wildcats have done their homework on Meece.

“They like to throw stuff low and outside to keep the batters off balance, so we’ve been working on that,” Bollenbacher said. “Coach has been throwing outside to us, having us keep our weight back. I think we know pretty well what the pitchers are going to do. I think we’ll be ready.”

The question is, is South Spencer’s staff ready for Hanover, which has a pretty deep lineup of its own?

Hanover’s lineup is deep, so it’s tough to pitch around Bollenbacher — another factor that helps his batting average and ability to avoid strikeouts. Eight of the Wildcats’ nine regular batters are hitting better than .300, with Bollenbacher, Zac Maciejewski (.440), Dan Stum (.431), and Tyler Trepton (.390) all wielding big bats.

“You can’t pitch around the guy in front of me, because then I’m up,” Bollenbacher said. “And you can’t pitch around me because of the guy after me. It’s the overall depth we have, which is kind of rare. You don’t see that many teams that have nine or 10 guys that hit exceptionally well. We’re very confident in what we can do.”

That confidence carries Bollenbacher at the plate. It carries Wellwerts on the mound. And it just might carry Hanover Central to its first baseball state championship.

“Not too many people thought we were going to go down to state,” said senior Mike Balich, another big bat with a .366 average and 22 RBI. “But once we won the PCC, sectionals, regionals, semistate — we’re going to win state. There’s nothing that can stop us now.”

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