While Memorial Day Weekend also featured a semifinal run from 14A2, it was our B teams that shone the brightest, with 14B taking home the title in the Vernon Hills Spring Tournament, and 13B (Gray) emerging as the champion of the  Bulldog Classic.    Congratulations to this week's victors!!!!

14B started off by walloping Top Tier, 11-1, before tying the Illinois Jays at 4-4.    That performance earned them the #1 seed in the playoffs, where they beat the NWC Jets, 8-7 in the semifinals and then battered GBN Feeder, 12-2, to take home the title.    Congrats to Coach Thomas and 14B!!!!

13B (Gray) started the weekend off by hammering Evanston, 14-4 and the Chicago Warriors, 13-6, and they entered the playoffs as the #2 seed behind only 13B (White), which won its two seeding round games by a combined 24 runs.    13B (Gray) beat Welles Park, 7-2, in the semifinals, and 13B (White) also won its semifinal game, setting up an all-NTF final.    While both teams played well all weekend, ultimately it was 13B (Gray) that came out of the final with the trophy in a one-sided affair.    Congrats to Coach Evans and his squad!!!!

Pictures are below (including a picture of all our 13B players in a show of sportsmanship that made us all proud)

On a weekend that also featured strong semifinal runs from each of our 14B and 13B teams, congratulations to 13A1 for taking home the JP Sports Experience The Turf Championship!!!!    13A1 actually lost their first game of the weekend to the McHenry Cobras, 7-3, but demonstrated tremendous resilience in beating Slammers Grey, 4-1 to move into the playoffs, then avenging their defeat to McHenry by pounding them, 10-2, to advance to the semifinals.    

In the semifinals, 13A1 broke open a close game against a talented HitDogs team, scoring 3 in the 4th and 3 in the 5th to pull away for an 8-2 victory.    Then, as the lights went on and the cold came in last night, 13A1 built an 8-3 lead and held off a furious 6th inning rally to beat Slammers Black, 8-7.    Congratulations to all of the players on a job well done!!!!

Congratulations to our alumni on an outstanding showing this spring.  All told, almost 80% of the players that were selected to play for NTHS this year are NTF alumni—a new record—and we have at least 68 (SIXTY EIGHT!!!!) alumni playing for either NTHS or Loyola this season.    Congrats to all of you, and good luck to those of you in the playoffs!!!!   

The list includes:

Trevor Bacik
Nick Bailey
Charles Baldridge
James Berman
Nathaniel Blazo
Will Blomeier
Mason Bloom
Kamran Boots
Gavin Brown
Kincaid Buck
Greg Campitelli
Caiden Carpenter
Chase Catanese
Max Chudgar
Peter Cusick
Spencer Daas
Keenan Donaldson
C.J. Donnelly
Charlie Donlan
Quinn Drehkoff
Jack Duff
Paul Earle
Quinn Egan
Rocky Eisen
Reed Ettelson
Weston Finn
Quinn Goldman
Rowan Hester
Seamus Higgins
Camden Hon
Patrick Horton
Liam Jones
Mason Jurewicz
Beau Krupski
Owen Kramer
Matthew Lampe
Austin LeBoyer
Robert Levoy
Thanwa Lindquist
Ryan Lorge
Brody Lutz
Dustin Matyas
Graham Melvin
Trey Meyers
Rick Miller
Charlie Murphy
Ben Newman
Henry O'Brien
James O'Brien
Zach Perchik
Oliver Plahn
Ben Plawsky
Harry Resis
Samuel Rivera
Andrew Rover
Jackie Ryder
Neil Sanderson
Owen Smith
William Smith
Isaac Solomon
Mick Soucheray
Daniel Spilotro
Ben Toft
Sebastian Urbanowski
Chase Vukovich
John Walther
Jacob Wineman
Tyler Woleben

Congratulations to our 13A1 team, which won the LSFBL Championship by beating last year's champions, the Glenview Patriots, 11-7, in the title game.    Trailing 7-6, 13A1 scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 5th and then shut Glenview down to win the title.    With the victory, 13A1 brings home its 5th LSFBL championship in the last 8 years, and NTF's 16th overall league championship in that same time frame.

As we head into the final week before the playoffs, we wanted to congratulate our 2024 tournament winners.    14B started us off early, winning the Lake Forest Bash on Mothers' Day by beating RBC and Mundelein on Saturday and smashing Lake Villa on Sunday.  13A2 was next, going 4-0 to win the Bulldog Classic's A Division on Memorial Day Weekend for the 2nd time in the last few years.    13A1 notched NTF's 3rd tournament win of the season in late June, winning the Experience The Turf tournament in Carol Stream, pounding two teams from ESP Select, Rake City, and Elite Baseball in the process.    And finally, 14A1 won the Black And Gold World Series on July 4th Weekend, going 5-0 against tough competition in the process.

Congrats to all our teams, and pictures below.    We'll be back early next week with the playoff update and schedule.

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