MSL Baseball: Prospect's Giusti Joins 500 Club
Schaumburg's Groot, Barrington's Smith also Part of League's Exclusive Group
Prospect baseball is a perfect example of stability leading to sustained success.
Larry Pohlman and Ross Giusti have been the Knights’ only baseball coaches since 1968. Giusti was a Daily Herald All-Area third baseman for Pohlman as a senior in 1985 after Arlington closed and was an assistant coach for him before taking over in 1997.
So, it was fitting on Thursday afternoon that Giusti would celebrate career victory No. 500 at Pohlman Field in dramatic fashion as the Knights topped St. Viator 6-5 with a two-out run in the bottom of the seventh inning. Giusti is now 500-330 overall and joins Schaumburg’s Paul Groot (611 wins) and Barrington’s Kirby Smith (543) as the only baseball coaches to win 500 games at a Mid-Suburban League school or schools.
Giusti also became one of eight MSL baseball coaches with 400 career victories. The biggest of them for Giusti and the Knights came in 2011 when they went 27-9 and finished third in the state in Class 4A behind two-time Daily Herald All-Area captain Jack Landwehr and all-area picks Brian Bauer, Peter Bonahoom, Luke Bergman, Kurt Donner, Matt Molini and Ben Menich.
Baseball records have always been a bit sketchy and difficult to track down, but here goes with a combination of what has been kept by myself and others at the Daily Herald, the IHSA and sportswriter Dion Martorano of the Journal & Topics newspaper. If you’ve got corrections let me know!
Paul Groot - Schaumburg - 611-303 (1985-2012)
Paul Groot, who starred at Wheeling and was a standout catcher at Purdue, inherited a Schaumburg program with only two winning seasons in its first 14. In his second year, the Saxons won 20 games for the first time and made the sectional final against eventual state champ Barrington and it only got better from there for Groot and longtime assistant Tom Mueller.
The 1989 Saxons made a surprise run to the AA title game where it lost an extra-inning heartbreaker to Harrisburg. But the 1997 team led by future pros Mike and T.J. Nall, All-Area picks Brian Wojtanowski, Paul Reuer and Tim Chambers and state tourney MVP Mark Belousek went 32-5 and had the dramatic finish on its side this time as it beat Lockport for the AA title on Wojtanowski’s RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The 2002 team led by ace John Hummel went 30-5 and just missed making it to state but Grant Monroe would lead the Saxons back to the AA Elite Eight in 2005. And Groot’s final team gave him a memorable farewell as it got hot in the final month to give him his 600th win and a trip to the 4A supersectional.
Kirby Smith - Barrington - 543-191 (1977-98)
The field now named after Kirby Smith was one of the best you would find anywhere for high school baseball and the same was true of the teams he and pitching guru Dave Engle produced. The Broncos never had a losing season and the 1986 AA state title powerhouse went 33-5, finished second in the USA Today national poll and blasted a then-state record 65 homers with two-way star and future Seattle Mariners’ all-star catcher Dan Wilson, Keith Noreen, Mike Bradley, Mark Levin, Peter Faith and James Wambach.
The homer record was broken a year later as Bartonville Limestone with Jim Thome hit 67. But the Broncos hit 64 more homers in 1987 en route to the first of consecutive second-place finishes. Smith’s final team led by Dan Pohlman took third and the 1980 and 1995 teams also made the Elite Eight.
The Broncos made the jump from the North Suburban Conference to the MSL in Smith’s second year in historic fashion by going 19-0 in league play for the first of their 16 North Division titles and 7 MSL crowns. They never finished lower than third place in division play in Smith’s tenure.
Paul Belo - Fremd, Palatine - 463-382 (1998-current)
Belo has the distinction of being the only one of this group to reach the Elite Eight as a player and a head coach at MSL schools. He started at second base when Hoffman Estates made it to the AA quarterfinals in 1985 and his 2000 Fremd team led by ace lefty Jeff Maitland finished fourth in AA after beating DeLaSalle with future Cub and five-year big leaguer Brian Bogusevic in the quarterfinals.
Belo's 2000 and 2001 teams set the Fremd record for wins with 28. After his fifth season he moved across town to replace the retiring Jim Koller at Palatine and his 2011 and 2012 teams won regional titles.
Larry Pohlman - Prospect - 435-304 (1968-96)
The even-keeled Pohlman missed out by a year of coaching future big-leaguers Dave Kingman and Tom Lundstedt at Prospect. But one of his players, multi-sport star Mike Quade, went on to a long career in professional baseball that included stints as a manager and coach for the Cubs.
Pohlman won a summer league state title but two of his best spring teams wound up blocked by MSL powers. The 1987 Knights went 24-9 but lost in the sectional final to defending state champion Barrington. His final team led by his son Dave went 27-9 but lost a 1-run regional final to pitching-rich and Elite Eight-bound Rolling Meadows.
Bob Huber - Hersey - 433-364 (1995-2017)
Huber came back home to his alma mater after pitching at Southern Illinois and after leading the Hersey pitchers as an assistant took over as a head coach. The 2003 team went 26-12 and made a sectional final for the first time as standout outfielder Casey Garms had a 34-game hitting streak.
The Huskies went back to the sectional in 2004 and Huber had 25-win teams in 2010 and 2012 along with seven MSL East titles. Huber had tremendous success developing pitchers to get the most out of their ability.
John Wendell - Buffalo Grove - 406-305 (1986-2008)
Daily Herald prep legend Bob Frisk admiringly said Wendell reminded him of an old-school baseball coach/manager. The fiery Wendell played Legion ball with White Sox and Phillies slugger Greg Luzinski and was BG’s head coach for future MLB catcher Josh Paul.
Wendell had 29-win sectional finalists in 1999 and 2002. The latter nearly joined Barrington by going unbeaten in the MSL before losing its East finale. But his 2007 team led by future pro Zach Borenstein and Ryan O’Gara gave him a memorable ride from stuck in neutral to high gear down the stretch and a spot in the AA Elite Eight.
Jim Koller - Palatine - 405-383 (1977-2002)
Palatine cycled through seven coaches in 17 years before Koller took over the program and brought some stability. His 1988 team led by All-Area picks Jim Pfeifer and Dan Marzec went 23-10 and made the program’s lone trip to a sectional final.
Two years later the Pirates went 23-7 and won an MSL title. Koller’s 1995 team won a school-record 24 games and his second-to-last team turned it on late in the season to win a regional title.