On the day he entered some rarified air at Naperville Central, Ryan Eiermann made an even bigger splash.
Eiermann, the sophomore left-hander who won Co-DuPage Valley Pitcher of the Year honors in 2015 along with Glenbard North’s Eric Orze, decided to end his recruitment by committing to TCU on Saturday.
“The offer went up a little bit,” Eiermann said on Monday. “That’s why I made the decision then because it went up to where we were hoping it would go to (in order) to make the decision.”
Courtesy of his six strikeouts in three innings against Lockport on Saturday, Eiermann became the third pitcher at Naperville Central to reach 100 strikeouts in a single season since 1982, joining Shane Conlon and Mike Deese.
On the year, Eiermann is 7-0 with a 0.23 ERA with 101 strikeouts in 61 innings.
Eiermann is 14 strikeouts shy of tying Mike Deese’s 115 strikeouts from 1986 for the second-most strikeouts in a single season at Naperville Central since Bill Seiple’s first year in 1982.
“I came in, knowing that I was going to be a sophomore, knowing my role,” Eiermann said. “Didn’t think it would end up where I was. I think it was just, along the way, the guys on our team just gave me and (sophomore shortstop) Connor Gurnik the confidence to do our best and it’s not about the juniors and seniors.
“It’s about winning and coming up with playoffs, the record that I’ve set—it doesn’t mean anything right now. All that means is that I did it. But now that playoffs are coming up, that’s my main objective. Hopefully once we go deep in the playoffs and win state, then I can think about it.”
The Horned Frogs’ College World Series appearance in 2010 first piqued his interest, Eiermann went down to a camp at TCU in January 2015 and the school made an immediate impression on him and his mother, Liz Johnson.
The fact he’s now committed to play for Jim Schlossnagle, who’s been TCU’s head coach since 2004, and the Horned Frogs before his sophomore year at Naperville Central has even concluded is a surprise, even to him.
“The plan going into the whole recruiting process was I was going to play this summer out and see if there were any more schools interested, or that would give me a better offer,” Eiermann said. “But at the bottom line, my main school was always TCU. Just because it fit everything that I wanted in a college: a small college, it was in the South, it had a good baseball school, had what I wanted to study.
“But it just so happened that they were interested also and they were able to give me the money that I wanted. And so I didn’t want to ask them to wait until the end of the summer. So right after I had that money given, I was really proud of it.”
Purdue was the only other scholarship offer Eiermann received.
“I called Purdue and Louisville and I just told them, ‘Thanks a lot for the time that you’ve given me, letting me visit your school and keeping in touch, but I’m going to commit with TCU, just because the money is right and I’ve always wanted to go there,’” Eiermann said. “So I think it’s final.”
