Daily Chronicle 2022 All-Area Baseball Player of the Year: Sycamore’s Ethan Storm

Ethan Storm opened the playoffs with a couple of home runs to spark a struggling Sycamore offense to a win.

And that wasn’t even his best postseason game by a long shot.

Storm also tossed a no-hitter against Kaneland in what would turn out to be his final start of the year in a sectional final to finish the season 9-0.

He has been named the 2022 Daily Chronicle Baseball Player of the Year.

“Overall, I thought the year went great,” said Storm, who struck out 91 and walked 16 in 49 2/3 innings with an ERA of 1.27. “Made big improvements from last year, and I thought statistically on the mound I improved a lot from last year. There were a lot of things that went a lot better than last year.”

Storm hit .301 this year with five home runs, two of them against Belvidere in a regional semifinal.

Storm said his power surge this year had a little to do with a different swing but a lot to do with his offseason workouts.

“I wasn’t really trying to go up there and hit home runs,” Storm said. “A big part of my offseason was going to the weight room, so I’ve got to attribute a lot of those home runs to that. A lot of them just came from two strikes, trying to put the ball in play, and they just went over the fence.”

Sycamore coach Jason Cavanaugh said that offseason effort also led to his performance on the hill.

“He put in all the work in the offseason, does a ton of arm-care stuff to make sure he’s going to be able to make his next start, works hard in the weight room,” Cavanaugh said. “Beyond that, he is just a great competitor. ... It’s no surprise to me why he was dominant on the mound.”

In the last outing of his Sycamore career, he no-hit rival Kaneland and pushed the Spartans into the supersectional round.

His performance came with a glitchy back that held him out of the lineup offensively but didn’t stop him from shutting down the Knights.

“It was pretty nerve-racking,” Storm said. “I’ve had back issues in the past, then coming in, it started back up. I was really hoping it wasn’t going to bug me too much, and it really didn’t. It wasn’t that bad.”

Storm did bat two days later in the Class 3A Geneseo Supersectional against Washington, an 8-4 loss that ended the Spartans’ season.

A big reason Sycamore got into that game, Cavanaugh said, was the performance by Storm against Kaneland.

“He gutted that game out,” Cavanaugh said. “It was mostly swinging that bothered him, so when he said he was good to go, we knew he would compete anyway. But at some point backs are tricky, and if your back is not cooperating, it’s hard to perform athletically at all. Fortunately for us, his back was fine.”

Storm will continue his career at Rock Valley College in Rockford. He said he really got along with Rock Valley’s coaching staff, and former Sycamore players he spoke to who went through the program spoke highly of it.

“I liked the idea of going to a junior college so I could develop for another two years,” Storm said, “and then be able to transfer out.”