Golden triumph: Guerin Catholic claims first baseball title with dominant victory over Andrean

The Guerin Catholic baseball team stepped onto Victory Field with a quiet sense of confidence. This kind of assurance comes from knowing that every possible step has been taken to prepare for the moment at hand. It’s the kind of confidence that makes it easy to overlook the fact that the Golden Eagles were playing in their first ever state title game, while Andrean was aiming for its state-record 10th championship.

From the very start, the Golden Eagles showed they were not only up to the challenge but ready to shine on the biggest stage in program history. They built a three-run lead after the first half-inning, and senior starter Tate Troxell dominated the 59ers, striking out 12 batters and allowing just one run over six innings. This performance led Guerin to a 9-3 Class 3A state championship victory.

The win will elevate Guerin to Class 4A next season due to its tournament success factor. Andrean will also move up to Class 4A after reaching Victory Field twice in two seasons.

“When we get that 3-0 lead, it’s real easy for me to get into autopilot and just cruise,” Troxell said. “Usually, I’m pretty breaking ball heavy. Today I was able to get ahead with my fastball. I think they were sitting off-speed too, so being able to use my fastball to get ahead with it was huge.”

“From the first pitch, I knew I was going to dominate and do what I do every time.”

Troxell faced some early trouble when Andrean's first two batters reached base. However, he quickly regrouped, striking out five of the next six batters. The 59ers threatened again in the third inning, but Luke Gremelspacher made a diving catch on a line drive from Kaden Maxwell, doubling off the runner at first to end the inning. Troxell’s fastball sat in the low 90 mph range, and the Andrean hitters struggled to pick it up. Six of his 12 strikeouts came without the batter swinging.

While Andrean struggled to adjust to Troxell, Guerin was aggressive against the Andrean pitching staff. The Golden Eagles took an all-hands-on-deck approach to prepare for Andrean’s left-handed pitchers. They set up their pitching machine to throw left-handed breaking balls. They had all their left-handed pitchers throw live batting practice and enlisted coach Dave Schrage and shortstop Karson Smith’s dad, Kyle, both left-handers, to throw batting practice to the players as well.

Illinois commit Kaden Maxwell, 6-foot-4 senior Louis Gage, and Ian Funk, a lefty with a crafty delivery, entered Saturday’s game having allowed a combined 32 earned runs over 126⅓ innings. Maxwell allowed three runs on two hits and was pulled after two-thirds of an inning. Funk and Gage also lasted just two-thirds innings each, giving way to righty Chase Nelson after Guerin built a 6-0 lead.

“We set our (pitching) machine up from left-handed breaking balls and that’s all we worked on,” Schrage said. “Myself and one of our coaches are left-handed, so we threw all week. So, we just pounded the left handers, so they got to see that more and more. We knew their top three guys were lefties and that was what we were going to see.”

Smith started the scoring with a RBI ground out. Ben Canada scored on a wild pitch, and Grant Beard plated one with a triple. Nolan Ratcliff led off the second with a single and scored on a wild pitch. Ratcliff added the knockout blow with a three-run double in the fourth. Ratcliff tied a Class 3A state record with four RBIs. Ratcliff and Canada had two hits each. Ian Taylor drove in one with a sacrifice fly in the second.

“We had been struggling pretty terribly against lefties all season,” Ratcliff said. “We really hammered machine work on lefties. ... I knew we were going to put balls in play. I knew it was going to be a big run-scoring day. We hadn’t scored much all postseason, but as soon as we saw that left come on the mound, we knew what he was throwing. We knew how he was throwing. We knew we were going to get in the box and hit some gap shots.”

The state title is a culmination of the work the Guerin senior class put in laying the foundation for the state-champion winning program. The Golden Eagles had five seniors—Troxell, Beard, Gremelspacher, Ratcliff, and Taylor—starting on varsity since their freshman season. They knew last season, after losing to Jasper in the semistate semifinal, that with everyone coming back, a trip to Victory Field was just possible, it was their main goal heading into the 2026 season.

"After losing last year at Jasper, we knew we had the talent, we could've done it last year," Taylor said. "We were ranked No. 1 all year. We had full confidence, but it was really just the brotherhood and friendships. When you trust the person to the right and left of you like your brother, you're not going to lose."