Mar 15, 2025
West Branch senior Anthony Perry will be the ace on the Warriors’ baseball team. Perry went 9-0 last season and was the winning pitcher in the Division II state championship game. (Morning Journal/Ron Firth)
BELOIT — At the end of the season a year ago, the West Branch baseball team secured its place in history as Division II state champions — a feat the 2025 squad looks to recapture.
There are, however, some large differences from the team last year. Most notably is the shift at head coach. Ryan Wolf enters his first season as head coach, but his involvement with the team isn’t new. Wolf served as an assistant coach for the last few years, and he believes this change in personnel isn’t going to be much of a factor.
Wolf took over for Rick Mulinix who stepped down as his son Boston enters his senior year.
“I was head coach at Columbiana for eight years and he had called me and talked about me coming over,” Wolf said. “We had worked on this transition over the last few years when Boston was a senior, we would flip roles so he could enjoy his son’s senior year.”
Looking ahead to this season, the Warriors have lost a group of seniors who helped carry the team. Those leadership roles have been filled by this year’s senior class. West Branch returns 10 seniors, all of whom know what it takes to get to the top of the mountain.
“We have a lot of older kids mixed with a lot of young talent. The expectations are sky high due to what we did, but we didn’t even win the league, so one of our big goals is to get back on top of the league and ride it from there,” Wolf said. “Based on what we accomplished last year, everybody understands that those goals are within reach if we work toward it. With more divisions now, you can see the vision a little better.”
Wolf said that vision is even clearer for the returning players. As the team kept progressing through May and June in the playoffs, Wolf said that additional practice will help the returning nine varsity-level players lead the younger group this season.
From that core nine, Wolf mentioned he expects the leadership to impact the younger players who could contribute regularly, saying that he can trust some of those seniors to take the younger players and show them how to do drills and help in that capacity.
“It’s like we have a bunch of extra coaches on the field,” he said. “That’s a great team to me. When you have that experience and the players can lead themselves, those are your best teams. We have a lot of that. They may not realize it, but the younger kids are following them, and that’s how you keep a great program going.”
As for the goals of this season, Wolf is starting small and working to the end goal of competing for a league title. Namely, Wolf wants his team to develop.
“If I can see that we did everything to help develop them as young men to learn some life lessons outside of baseball and we use baseball to teach them those lessons, it’s a successful season despite the record,” he said. “We have our goals of winning a league title, but we think every year that we should be competing deep into the playoffs. Our goal is always to make a deep run, but we want to build to be the best team we can be in May to get us through the playoffs.”
Wolf said the identity of the team is pitching and defense first. He credits his coaches, Shawn Alazaus and Gino Sabatine, with getting the pitchers prepared to eat innings, despite losing three key starters. Defensively, Wolf said the team last year set a school record in fielding percentage and believes that performance can be replicated.
“We focus so hard on defense and run prevention is so big for us,” he said. “This year especially because one thing we did lose is power.”
Offensively, he can see the team reverting back to “small ball” and manufacture runs. He likened the offensive attack to the film Moneyball and the philosophy of getting on base by any means necessary.
“We have a few guys that can really drive gaps, but from there it’s unproven. If we pitch and play great defense, then we’ll always be in games and we can get there,” he said. “We really want to focus on base running and taking advantage on the base paths. We want to score runs and get on base by any means necessary.”
One area that West Branch is looking to bolster is the pitching rotation. Of the graduating seniors last year, three of which were key pitchers. Wolf said the younger crew will contribute heavily in terms of innings pitched.
“We’re bringing back Anthony Perry, but a lot of our other starters graduated, so we expect our young guys to contribute and lead us,” he said.
Perry will serve as the No. 1 in the West Branch starting rotation. In the state title game, Perry earned the starting nod and was pivotal for the Warriors’ run in the postseason. Wolf said the element Perry brings to the table is competition. As the game wanes on or if Perry gets in a jam, Wolf believes his natural competitive nature will strand runners on the basepath.
“He’s a competitor. His velocity is good, his speed is good but when there’s a runner on second, he’s not going to let him score,” Wolf said. “He seems to get better as the pressure mounts. His command is really good as well. He puts the ball where he wants and limits the amount of hard-hit balls against him.”
Rounding out the starting rotation will be Jeremiah Thomas, Trevor Minich, Carter Thrasher and Evan Springer. Carter Thrasher and Evan Springer showed promise last year at JV, and Wolf praised the duo for developing into varsity-level talent.
“Thomas pitched for us last year. He started some games for us as a freshman and sophomore. Minich is another senior who had a really good JV year last season, so we’re hoping to get some innings from him as well,” Wolf said. “We have a lot of arms and a lot of guys that want to pitch, so we’re still evaluating.”
Defensively, Wolf said the strength of the team is up the middle. Boston Mulinix will anchor shortstop and, when not on the mound, Thomas will handle center field.
Across the diamond, Perry will see time at third base, and Maddox Coleman and Carson Wike will see some time in the outfield as well.
There are a few positions up for grabs with some position battles taking place. One such position is catcher. Wolf said there are a handful of utility players that will be moved around and plugged in when situations call for it.
“We have some experience with seniors Charlie Biskup and Walker Poorbaugh. They’re competing, and that’s what we want to see. We want that competition,” Wolf said. “One thing that’s nice about our team, especially this year, is that they just want to compete, be on the field and help the team win in any way, so they’re willing to move around however they need.”
Offensively, Wolf said Perry could drive the ball anywhere and Biskup will see his name toward the top of the lineup card. He added that Thomas’ speed on the basepaths will help the Warriors manufacture runs.
Wolf said Wike has some good pop off of the bat and is hopeful for Coleman to produce as well.
“We don’t exactly know what we’re going to get offensively from some of these guys just because of experience,” he said. “We’re excited for these next few weeks to get some scrimmages and get going.”
West Branch will open the 2025 season on March 29 against Girard.
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