Tag Archives: Andrew Dutkanych IV

Neese moves up to head coach role for Brebeuf Jesuit

August 18, 2022 stvkrh905 Leave a comment

Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School baseball ended the 2022 season as IHSAA Class 3A state runners-up.
The 2021 Braves participated at the semistate level.
Wes Neese was an assistant coach with those clubs and is now Brebeuf head coach after Jeff Scott stepped away from the post.
“There won’t be a ton of changes,” says Neese. “Our philosophies were so much the same. We did everything together.”
Neese and Scott met each other as assistants on the Mooresville (Ind.) High School staff led by Eric McGaha.
Scott was Neese’s assistant during his time leading the Pioneers program. Neese aided Scott for two previous seasons at Brebeuf, three at Martinsville (Ind.) High School and the most-recent stint with the Indianapolis-based Braves.
“I’ve been fortunate to be with coaches who didn’t have a big ego and let you coach as an assistant,” says Neese. “Coach McGaha did not micro-manage us. Jeff and I have continued that.”
As a Brebeuf assistant, Neese was third base and pitching coach. He called the pitches.
“I was able to learn a lot,” says Neese, who looks forward to getting ready for 2023 during the upcoming IHSAA Limited Contact Period.
“I’m letting kids get settled into school roles right now,” says Neese. “Starting Sept. 6 we’ll go two days a week for two hours until fall break.”
There will be practices on Father O’Brien Field and weightlifting days.
“We have quite a few fall athletes so we won’t have our whole team,” says Neese. “We’ll get to know as many kids as we can.”
Many position players are expected back for 2023. About 15 varsity innings return to the pitching staff with the graduation of Andrew Dutkanych IV (Vanderbilt University commit), Sam Reed (Eastern Michigan University), Chase Golden (Western Illinois University) and A.J. Rinebold (who plans to try to walk on at Purdue University).
Luke Bauer is bound for baseball at Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) and Anthony Annee football at Marian University in Indianapolis.
Neese says there are no college baseball commitments yet in the Class of 2023 but Jayden Ohmer has gotten D-I schools to indicate interest.
First base coach Thomas Parker (a former Huntington North High School and Anderson University player) and infield coach/data and analytics coordinator Eric Hartung (who works for the NCAA in Indianapolis) return to the varsity coaching staff. Mooresville graduate and retired Ford Motor Company quality lead Eric Fenwick is an addition and will guide outfielders. Neese is interviewing junior varsity coach candidates.
The Class of 2021 had to two college players in 2022 — Nathan Bingman at Virginia Military Institute and Jack Moronek at Butler University in Indianapolis with the Class of 2020’s Shane Bauer at Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.), Karl Meyer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Andrew Pickett at Hope College (Holland, Mich.). Gabe Wright extended his prep school time at IMG Academy (Bradenton, Fla.).
Neese is a 1997 graduate of Greencastle (Ind.) High School, where Stan Ward was the head baseball coach his freshman year and Glen Hile was in charge of the Tiger Cubs the last three.
After being cut from baseball in fall at DePauw University in Greencastle, Neese opted to change his major to Secondary Education and began coaching at the youth and high school levels.
After a long stint as a teacher at Mooresville, Neese opted for a career change and went to work for Adrenaline Fundraising territory owner Scott and works from his Plainfield, Ind., home as business operations manager.
Wes and wife Jean Ann, a pharmacist at Eli Lily, celebrated 20 years of marriage in June. The couple has two sons — Brebeuf sophomore football/baseball player Steven Neese and Plainfield Community Middle School eighth grade footballer Brayden Neese.
What Wes Neese appreciates is the support Brebeuf baseball gets from president Fr. William Verbryke, athletic director Ted Hampton and assistants AD’s Brad Weinstein and Jacob Weinstein.
“There’s never been a time when we needed something that they weren’t there to provide it,” says Neese. “Working of the right people is credibly important to me and Brebeuf is the right place because of the people.”
Brebeuf (enrollment around 825) is four-year private school a member of the Circle City Conference (with Covenant Christian, Guerin Catholic, Heritage Christian, Indianapolis Bishop Chatard and Roncalli).
The Braves were part of an IHSAA Class 3A sectional grouping in 2022 with Danville Community, Greencastle, Indianapolis Cardinal Ritter and Tri-West Hendricks. Brebeuf has won 16 sectional titles — the last dozen coming in the 2000’s.

Joe Perkins (left), Thomas Parker, Jeff Scott, Wes Neese and Eric Hartung.

The Neese family (from left): Wes, Jean Ann, Steven and Brayden.

College, High School

Indiana Wesleyan’s Benjamin talks to North/South All-Stars about honor, thankfulness

June 25, 2022 stvkrh905 Leave a comment

By STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Players chosen for the 2022 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series were honored at a banquet Friday, June 24 and will continue to be celebrated as three games are played June 25-26 at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion — two Saturday beginning at noon and one Sunday at 1 p.m.
As keynote speaker at Friday’s banquet, where Brebeuf Jesuit’s Andrew Dutkanych IV was revealed as the 2022 IHSBCA Player of the Year, IWU head baseball coach Rich Benjamin offered a message on honor and thankfulness to a group including many teenagers who are about to embark on the college baseball experience.
“We define the word honor as looking for the strengths and abilities of another without tripping over their perceived shortcomings,” said Benjamin. “It’s really preferences.
“This happens on a baseball team. You’re with each other every single day. Right? You go to college and it becomes this 9- to 10-month journey, where you see somebody six, seven days a week. There’s going to be preferences.
“Your coach will have preferences. A 6 a.m. lift is not a hard issue. It’s a preference. What can happen is in any environment that you’re in, there is a danger of getting so wrapped up in the preferences that you miss the strengths of the environment.”
Benjamin challenged the All-Stars to enter into the relationship created by being on a college team by looking for the strengths and abilities in others and not tripping over their perceived shortcomings.
The coach with more than 500 career victories offered a personal example.
“My dad’s a good dad,” said Benjamin. “I think I was a pretty good son. But for 6 1/2 years we didn’t talk.
“The reason why we didn’t talk is because the relationship got wrapped up and perceived weaknesses and preferences. Maybe what he wished I was and maybe what I wished he was.”
Then somebody sat Benjamin down to discuss honor. He went home that night, went to his kitchen table and began to write down all his father’s strengths.
A few weeks later, his stepmother reached out. She wanted her husband and stepson to have a great relationship.
“For the first time in 6 1/2 years, I was able to respond from a place of honor,” said Benjamin. “Instead of responding from the perceived weaknesses that I saw in my father, instead I responded from one of his strengths. I said my dad is the hardest-working man I’ve ever known.”
The son also wanted the father to work at their relationship.
A few more weeks go by and the father went to see the son coach at Judson University in Elgin, Ill., where Benjamin led the baseball program from 2008-15.
“It was a monumental weekend,” said Benjamin. “It was like Win No. 200 or 300. And during that game, he looked over at my stepmom and he said, ‘You know what? He’s a good man.’ I’d never heard my dad say that. Not a day in my life. And he was a good dad. But he didn’t use those words.
“What set the foundation for that entire situation? It wasn’t the ability to change the other person in the room. I had no control over that. It was the ability to go ahead and just live from a place of honor.”
Benjamin coached in Tennessee and Illinois before coming to Indiana in 2016.
“I don’t know of another high school organization that puts as much effort into the all-star recognition in the state of Indiana to have a banquet in your honor and have a practice day as well with photos, uniforms — the whole thing. They do a tremendous job of honoring you guys this weekend.”
Benjamin knows that players like things a certain way. Are the pants tight or loose enough? Is the cap my size? Will I get to wear my favorite number?
“You’re allowed to have preferences,” said Benjamin. “And you’re allowed to express those preferences and your coaches and the people in your life they’re allowed to love and serve to the best of their ability to go ahead and fulfill those preferences.
“But not all preferences can be changed. And so when you’re done exposing or expressing your preferences, just say, ‘man, what are the strengths and the opportunities right here in this room?’ The strength and the opportunity is that entire weekend was created to honor you.”
Benjamin’s mother is a three-time cancer survivor who has also come away from two highway accidents that could have been fatal.
Her response to her son about learning she was cancer-free?
“She said, ‘The Lord taught me how to praise him in a valley this weekend,’” said Benjamin. “That’s thankfulness. To be able to get to a place of thankfulness and praise in the middle of the valley.
“You’ll be able to do that on a mountaintop and many of you will have to reach your place of thankfulness at 6 a.m. when you’re on limited sleep and you’re on pace to get the first B of your entire life or you’re in an intrasquad and your one at-bat the whole day is against top-five-rounder and he’s working on a slider that day and you won’t see any heaters. Right then you’re gonna have to enter a place of thankfulness.”

Rich Benjamin (Indiana Wesleyan University Photo)

High School

Brebeuf’s Dutkanych chosen 2022 IHSBCA Player of the Year

June 24, 2022 stvkrh905 2 Comments

By STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

A day removed from sitting in the office of Vanderbilt University head baseball coach Tim Corbin, Andrew Dutkanych IV was in a rural banquet hall in his home state being honored by prep coaches as the best player of 2022.
Committed to play at Vandy, Dutkanych had a meeting with the Commodores coach in Nashville, Tenn., on Thursday, June 23.
“It’s always cool to go down to Vanderbilt,” says Dutkanych. “I’ve been in-contact with them for so long. It’s becoming more and more real as it comes up on the next few months.
“We were just talking about what the fall will look like if that’s what my decision comes to.”
The 6-foot-3, 205-pound right-handed pitcher who went 8-1, struck out 114, walked 25 in 54 innings and led his high school team to the 2022 IHSAA Class 3A championship game could find himself back in Music City in the fall as part of a traditional college baseball powerhouse.
Or Dutkanych’s name could be called early in the 2022 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft (slated for July 17-19) and cause him to go the pro route straight out of Brebeuf Jesuit High School in Indianapolis.
On Friday, June 24 — the eve of the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion — and with parents Andrew III and Caroline and brothers Sam, Jack and Luke plus high school head coach Jeff Scott in the audience at Roseburg Event Center, Dutkanych was honored as the 2022 IHSBCA Player of the Year.
“Duke” knows many of the All-Stars from high school and travel ball circles. He will root on other South invitees, but he will not play in the games (two Saturday and one Sunday).
After his time in Marion he will head back home and be a regular visitor to the weight room.
“Right now I’m focusing on building some massive in my upper body a little bit,” says Dutkanych. “I want to get stronger up here and take a break from throwing.”
Dutkanych says he will coordinate his training with PRP Baseball’s Anthony Gomez will doing most of the work at the gym next to his house.
“The last week all I was focused on was the State Finals,” says Dutkanych. “It was obviously a heart-breaking (5-1) loss (to Andrean).
“But it’s also been really cool to kind of reflect on the whole high school career and the relationships I had with the seniors and the whole team. I just felt a lot of pride in the last week for just being part of that team for four years.”

Brebeuf Jesuit’s Andrew Dutkanych IV is the 2022 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Player of the Year. (Steve Krah Photo)

High School, Travel

Brebeuf’s Dutkanych makes high marks in classroom, on mound

October 12, 2021 stvkrh905 3 Comments

By STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Andrew Dutkanych IV is a dedicated student – academically and athletically.
During the current fall semester at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, senior Dukanych is taking nine courses and eight are of the Advanced Placement variety. During the spring semester of 2020-21, he earned a weighted 4.65 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale.
As a baseball player – particularly as a pitcher — the 6-foot-3, 205-pounder has investigated ways to make steady progress.
Dukanych committed to powerhouse Vanderbilt University at the beginning of his sophomore year at Brebeuf. In two seasons with the Braves (2020 was taken away by the COVID-19 pandemic), he is 12-6 with a 1.29 earned run average, 206 strikeouts and 35 walks in 119 innings. He averages 12.1 K’s and 2.0 walks per seven innings. His WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) is 0.84.
He tossed an 18-strikeout no-hitter in the 2021 Marion County tournament championship game against Lawrence North at Victory Field and earned honorable mention on the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Class 3A all-state team.
Jeff Scott is Brebeuf’s head coach. Wes Neese is the pitching coach.
“He’s really good,” says Dutkanych of Scott. “He puts a lot on us players. He likes us to lead the team.
“Coach Neese and I talk about pitching and planning.”
The 18-year-old right-hander’s four-seam fastball has been clocked at 97 mph and regularly sits in the mid 90’s. He credits his training to his climb in speed.
“I’ve had consistency in the weight room and with my plan and gradually added velo,” says Dukanych, who has been working on strength training and arm care since he was 14. Greg Vogt is the founder and Anthony Gomez the lead floor trainer at PRP Baseball in Noblesville, Ind.
“It’s an independent thing, but I have constant communication,” says Dutkanych. “They devised a plan for me.”
Pulldowns — aka Running Throws or Run ’n Guns — are max-effort throws with a running start in the off-season. They are often charted on standings boards, giving an extra layer of competition to training.
“It’s it’s a tool that helps you condition your arm and gradually throw harder,” says Dutkanych. “If you want to throw harder you’ve got to practice throwing hard at times.”
Dutkanych offers a comparison.
“Sprinters sometimes run slightly downhill which forces their legs to move faster,” says Dutkanych. “With a pulldown, your arm is going to move faster. Your body can feel what 102 (mph) is like and that can translate to the mound. But I do pulldowns like three times a year. It’s more important to throw bullpens on the mound.”
Dutkanych’s mound arsenal — thrown from what he describes as “a relaxed over-the-top” arm angle — also features a slider, curve and change-up and he plans to add a two-seam fastball.
“I use a lot of my own ideas,” says Dukanych. “I don’t think I’ve had a coach call my pitches since I was 13.”
His slider is characterized by its late movement.
“I try to make it look like a fastball,” says Dutkanych. “When its good, it breaks late to the left and falls to the ground. It’s not a sweeper.”
The curve spins over the top with downward bite.
“I like to throw it for strikes because it freezes the batter,” says Dutkanych.
The change-up is new. He did not throw one in the spring or at the beginning of the summer.
Major League Baseball and USA Baseball hosted the High School All-American Game at Coors Field in Denver July 9 and Dukanych worked one inning.
Dutkanych pitched two innings in the Perfect Game National Showcase July 14-18 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Dutkanych was invited to the Prospect Development Pipeline League in July. From the Top 96 in the country, he made the trials then the Team USA roster for a Sept. 2-8 seven-game Friendship Series vs. Canada in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. He started Game 1 and relieved in Game 6.
Before that came one inning in the Perfect Game All-American Classic (July 29 in San Diego) and three in the East Coast Pro (Aug. 2-5 in Hoover, Ala.). Between them he began working on the change-up and began using it as another weapon.
“This off-season I’m going to try to develop a two-seam fastball to develop at the bottom of the zone,” says Dutkanych, who also found time in the summer to play in Perfect Game tournaments with the Philadelphia Phillies Scout Team in West Palm Beach, Fla., and Atlanta and with the Indiana Bulls in Hoover.
His summer number is often 84 since it equates with initials of “AD4.”
It was just this week that Dutkanych the academic caught up on the classwork he missed while he was away from Brebeuf.
In 2020, Dutkanych the athlete helped Canes National win the Perfect Game National Championship. He was with the team in events in Atlanta and the the USA Baseball complex in Cary, N.C.
The righty is on a path to college baseball in Nashville, but there is a possibility that he could be selected high in the 2022 MLB First-Year Player Draft and decide to begin his professional career.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Dutkanych played at Washington Township Little League and then went into travel ball during his 13U summer with the Indiana Bulls. Before entering Brebeuf, he attended Westlane Middle School (an Indianapolis North Central High School feeder).
He is the oldest of attorney Andrew Dutkanych III and grants manager Caroline Dutkanych’s four boys. Sam Dutkanych (14), Jack Dutkanych (11) and Luke Dutkanych (8) are all involved in multiple sports, including baseball.