To The New Trier Feeder Baseball Community:

As many of you know, nine years ago we substantially redesigned the New Trier Feeder Baseball program with the specific purpose of creating a best in class, year-round and community-based training program and experience in order to prepare our 7th and 8th grade players to play baseball at the highest levels in high school and, in many cases, college.  Our not-for-profit program now exceeds the quality of those offered by the top “pay for play” organizations in our area while still (1) permitting our athletes to play with their friends in their own communities and with the vast majority of players they will be playing with in HS, at a time when they make the important transition from their middle schools into a large high school, and (2) allowing the significant number of multi-sport athletes in our community to be able to engage in other sports.    All while playing—and beating—many of those top pay-for-play programs in head-to-head action.  

Indeed, on the field, the program has been a rousing success.  We have won 16 MSBL and LSFBL league championships over the past several seasons—in one season winning an unprecedented all four LSFBL Pony leagues—as well as so many tournaments, we’ve lost count.  This season, we continue to add to those totals.    Our top 14A team—a group that was ranked as the top team in the state at various times last year—is playing the hardest schedule any NTF has ever played (one consisting of mostly tournaments), and has been up to the task.    Our top 13A team is also playing mostly tournaments, and is off to a great start, having already won one elite tournament and having advanced far into the weekend in others.    As of this writing, our second 14A team has the highest winning percentage in the LSFBL’s A division this year, and our third 14U team leads the LSFBL’s B division in winning percentage.    (Talk about a deep group).    Our second 13A team—a team that historically has gotten better and better as the season goes along—survived a brutally tough early season schedule and is starting to get hot.    And not to be outdone, our 13B (Gray) team has already won one tournament this year—a tournament in which they had to best our tough 13B (White) team in the final to take home the trophy.

But most importantly, SIXTY-EIGHT (!!!!) of our alumni were selected to play high school baseball this season—an amount exponentially larger than that of any other program, and one that included just about every starter on this year’s VARSITY NTHS team. (In addition, virtually every one of our alumni that tried out at Loyola or NSCD also made a team this year).  Indeed, many of our freshman alumni were selected to play at the sophomore level in their first season, with other alumni making the jump to their varsity team as sophomores.  That is not because NTHS or any other high school favors our players; rather, it’s because our coaching staff, consisting largely of former New Trier players and coaches, knows exactly how to help our players prepare and develop so that they can be successful at New Trier and beyond.  It’s fun to win, but it is development that is our primary goal—and on that score, we continue to exponentially outperform all other programs in the area.

As you may know, players are placed on specific NTF teams immediately following the conclusion of our Fall Tryout Program, which begins in late August and runs through early September.    We write to let you know that registration for the 2025 Fall Tryout Program will open for all players on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at 10:00 A.M..  In each of the last few seasons, that Fall Tryout Program has been heavily oversubscribed, and we have had to close registration early—usually after only a couple of weeks—as there is a limit to the amount of players our coaches can fairly evaluate.    The Fall Tryout Program is mandatory—that is, you have to participate in the program to be selected for an NTF team—so if you are interested, please do register early.

We will be holding introductory meetings on Thursday, June 26, 2025 before the 12A and 12B games between WBA and NTY—one at 5:00 P.M. at Roemer Park, and one at 7:00 P.M. at Winnetka.    (Wilmette 12C parents and players, as well as players and players that reside within the district but are currently playing in other programs are, of course, welcome at either meeting).    If you are new to the program, we strongly encourage you to have at least one parent attend one of the two meetings.    At the meetings, our Baseball Director, Trey Frahler, will discuss the Fall Tryout Program and how we go about our evaluation process in detail, and both Trey and Drew Cardonick, the President of NTF, will be available to answer questions.

In the meantime, details on the 2025 Fall Tryout Program are below.

The 2025 Fall Tryout Program will be substantially similar in nature to the program we have conducted for the last several years.  It is designed to help our evaluators see more of players than they would in two short tryouts, while still being flexible enough to allow multi-sport athletes to play their other, in-season sports.  The Fall Tryout Program is mandatory—a player must participate in it to be selected for a NTF team.   And, based on our parents’ responses to last year’s process, we will keeping the three most significant changes we made last year: (1) a shortening of the program for 14U players to account for the fact that our 14U team selections are mostly based on performance in our program during the players’ 13U year, (2) a slightly earlier start date to allow the program to end earlier to accommodate our many multi-sport athletes, and (3) the addition of a special skills evaluation session and a Sunday night scrimmage (this year, expanded to both levels) to accommodate players with conflicting football/hockey/other sport commitments.

As usual, the Fall Tryout Program will have two components—skills evaluation and scrimmages.    As was the case last year, each player should only attend one of the multiple age-appropriate skills evaluation sessions each week—and the player can pick which one, and you don’t have to tell us in advance.    (The evaluation is exactly the same regardless of which night of the week a player chooses).  On the other hand, for the scrimmages, we do assign players to particular scrimmages each week.    Those roster assignments will be posted on Wednesday of each week for the upcoming weekend’s games.    (The only exception to that is that with respect to the first set of 13U scrimmages on Saturday, August 23, 2025--because for those scrimmages the 13U players will be divided based on their performance at their first skills evaluation on either W 8/20 or R 8/21, for that week only those rosters will not be completed or announced until Friday, August 22, 2025.)    As usual, all scrimmages will last 2 hours, and they will be run by the coaches that are actually picking the relevant teams.

Week Of Monday, August 18, 2025

1.  Monday, August 18, 2025 - 14U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
2.  Tuesday, August 19, 2025 - 14U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
3.  Wednesday, August 20, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
4. Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
5. Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 14U And 13U Skills Evaluation For Players Conflicted By Other Sports - 6:45 P.M. - 8:15 P.M. - Northfield
6. Saturday, August 23, 2025 - 1st 14U And 13U Scrimmages - 9:00 A.M., 11:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M., and 3:00 P.M. - Northfield and Winnetka

Week Of August 25, 2025

1. Monday, August 25, 2025 - 14U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
2. Tuesday, August 26, 2025 - 14U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
3. Wednesday, August 27, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
4. Thursday, August 28, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
5. Thursday, August 28, 2025 - 14U And 13U Skills Evaluation For Players Conflicted By Other Sports - 6:45 P.M. - 8:15 P.M. - Northfield
6. Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 2nd 14U And 13U Scrimmages - 9:00 A.M., 11:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M., and 3:00 P.M. - Northfield and Winnetka
7. Sunday, August 31, 2025 - Sunday Night 14U Scrimmage (Only Some Players Will Be Invited) - 5:30 P.M.

Week Of September 1, 2025 - Last Week For 14U Players

1. Tuesday, September 2, 2025 - 14U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
2. Wednesday, September 3, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
3. Thursday, September 4, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
4. Thursday, September 4, 2025 14U And 13U Skills Evaluation For Players Conflicted By Other Sports - 6:45 P.M. - 8:15 P.M. - Northfield
5. Friday, September 5, 2025 (moved from Labor Day) - 14U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
6. Saturday, September 6, 2025 - Final 14U Scrimmages And Third 13U Scrimmages - 9:00 A.M., 11:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M., and 3:00 P.M. - Northfield and Winnetka - this will be the final set of 14U scrimmages and the end of the Fall Tryout Program for 14U players
7. Sunday, September 7, 2025 - Sunday Night 13U Scrimmage (Only Some Players Will Be Invited) - 5:30 P.M.

Week Of September 8, 2025 - Last Week For 13U Players

1. Wednesday, September 10, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
2. Thursday, September 11, 2025 - 13U Skills Evaluation - 4:30 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. - Northfield
3. Thursday, September 11, 2025 13U Skills Evaluation For 13U Players Conflicted By Other Sports - 6:45 P.M. - 8:15 P.M. - Northfield
4. Saturday, September 13, 2025 - Final 13U Scrimmages - 9:00 A.M., 11:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M., and 3:00 P.M. - Northfield and Winnetka - this will be the final set of 13U scrimmages and the end of the Fall Tryout Program for 13U players

Rosters will be announced on Saturday, September 13, 2025, and thereafter players will have a short window to register, pay in full, and accept their spots.

Important Final Points:

A few final points about the Fall Tryout Program:

No parents, whether members of the New Trier Feeder Board or otherwise, are involved in training or evaluating our players or selecting our teams.  All decisions are made solely by our coaches and our Director of Baseball Operations.  Our program is a complete meritocracy.  As is made abundantly clear to all of the players on the first day of the program, the entirety of the program is a tryout—that is, players are being evaluated throughout the program.    While for our 14U players, there is a heavy emphasis on their 13U performance, what happens in the Fall does matter on the margins, in particular because the field increases in size.  And at 13U, what happens in the Fall is all that matters—we strongly believe that 13U players should be given a clean slate at 13U and looked at anew, and as a result our coaches do not consider what team a player was on at 12U or how they performed at that level.  At all.  Indeed, our process is blind, and we will be continuing the practice we began two years ago of providing the coaches with only the numbers of the 13U players, not name, level, or community until the tryout process is fully complete.

In addition, the Fall Tryout Program is intended for the competitive baseball player that intends to play for us and then go on to play baseball in HS (and in numerous cases, college).   There are no quotas for individual communities or individual positions—we will take the best players from the community, period.  Given the number of players that do participate in the program from our multiple feeder communities, that has led to some disappointment in the past.  So while (until we reach capacity, see below) we will not turn away registrants, we do ask that, as parents, you please consider carefully whether your player fits within the above description.  Players are evaluated on a daily basis, the competition level of the program can be exceedingly high, and as a result parents often comment to us that the program is intensive and nerve-wracking.    Our answer is simply “yes, exactly.”  The high school tryout process is equally long and stressful.  Our job is to prepare our players for it, and this is part of that.    In addition, we strongly believe that our lengthy process improves our coaches’ decision quality by giving them a detailed body of work to review to make placement decisions, rather than the smaller sample size of simply a day or two.    Finally, unlike other programs that advertise one day “tryouts,” our program really is a tryout and results in an immediate team placement at the conclusion of our Fall Tryout Program.    (In contrast to pretty much every "pay for play" program, we do not take a player, require payment, test them out over several months, see who else signs up, and only then tell a player what team the player will be placed on.)   That's yet another reason we want to take the time to get it right.

Registration for all players will open on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at 10:00 A.M..  In each of the last few seasons, we have been massively oversubscribed, and have had to close registration early, as there is a limit to the amount of players our coaches can fairly evaluate.    Thereafter, registration will remain open for all players until we hit capacity.    So if you are interested, we strongly encourage you to sign up right away.

If you have any questions, please feel free to attend our information meetings or reach out to us at info@newtrierfeederbaseball.com.    We look forward to seeing everyone this Fall.

Congratulations to our 14A1 Blue team, which won the elite level Salute To Pops tournament in Schaumburg this Father's Day Weekend!!!!    14A1 started off the weekend with a one run loss to the Thunder Select, then bounced back by trouncing ITB Red in their second seeding round game.    Advancing to the seeding round with that 1-1 record, 14A1 beat the Illinois Jays, 6-3, then hammered the #1 seeded ESP National squad, 10-0, to advance to the semifinals.    In the semifinals, 14A1 rallied from an early 3-1 deficit to best a previously undefeated Rockford Gamers squad, 10-7.    Finally, in the Sunday morning final, 14A1 avenged its defeat to the Thunder Select, going up 10-0 early and ultimately winning in 6 innings, 11-4.    Congrats to all of the players, which have performed admirably against arguably the most difficult schedule any of our teams has ever played.    A special picture of the team—with the players' dads, on Father's Day—is below.

While the weekend belonged to 14A1, we’d be remiss in not giving a special shoutout to our other 14U teams on their recent performance.    14A2 has now won 8 straight games, and has moved into first place (by winning percentage) in the LSFBL’s A division.     And 14B has now won 12 straight games (including 5 in a row this week), and sits alone atop its LSFBL division.    The 14U class is deep and talented, folks—and playing extremely well, just in time for Omaha and, more importantly, just in time for their high school careers to begin with summer camp.    The coaches always tell the players to trust the process to get them to this point.    It's great to see it working so well.

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.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact: