2011 15 Year Old Thunder Team

Palos Thunder 15U Team

Many of the coaches and players from last summer’s successful 14u July team wanted to pick up where they left off last summer.  With the support of PBO they were able to due so.

Once the high school baseball season finished, the team was able to start that weekend at the Oak Lawn Memorial Weekend Tournament going 1-1 in a rain shortened series.

They then played at Ho Chuck in Lynwood going 3-0 and going into the Finals as the number one seed of 14 teams, where they lost in the semi-final game played at South Suburban College to a 3 year rival team from Elmhurst called the Westside Warriors.

The next tournament was close to home at Richards High School where we started slow with opening losses, before beating the Illinois Knights, our oldest Sunday League rival from Cicero 5-2.  We advanced and beat the number one seed in the semi-finals.

Over the 4th of July weekend we played three hard fought games including a 2-1 lose in the bottom of the 7th to the team who later lost in the Championship.

The team is coached by Mike Sullivan, who coached last season at Robert Morris University after a 4 year career as a professional player. The assistants include former PBO managers Jim Beese, Ken Glotz, Al Hermanas, Greg Soukupts and Oak Forest manager, Erich Lieser.

The team consists of last years 14 year of team of Dan Beese (Brother Rice), Bryan Glotz (Chicago Christian), Sam Hermanas (Shepard), Scott Neimoth (Chicago Christian), Sean O'Meara (Chicago Christian), David Piechalak (Stagg), Eric Ruge (Richards), and Jake Soukup (Marist). We added former PBO players Jake Bilo (Shepard), Max Kerfin (Chicago Christian) and extended invitations to former Oak Forest Players who played in the inter-league PBO Pony League games including: Xavier Alfaro ( Oak Forest), Eric Lieser ( Brother Rice) and Bobby Sullivan (Brother Rice).

The team will finish the season in a Wood Bat Tourney in Lombard the weekend of July 16 and 17.