Richmond-Burton’s versatile Ray Hannemann can be considered a two-headed baseball monster and a towhead who hit a monster shot.

Well, maybe years from now that’s how the senior first baseman/outfielder will remember his first varsity home run.

It came two years ago in the Rockets’ season-opening win against visiting Rockford Lutheran.

“I think my favorite memory from all the sports was the first pitch of my sophomore year,” said Hannenmann, a three-sport athlete who’s played varsity baseball since his freshman year. “I hit a home run – and I haven’t hit one since."

He laughs. But, oh, the homer was a shot, a bomb from the blond. Hannemann took that first pitch he saw and blasted the baseball over the fence in dead center field.

“Definitely a good memory,” he said, smiling.

Hannemann has a lot of good memories of playing sports at R-B.

As starting quarterback last fall, he helped the football team advance to the Class 3A state semifinals and successfully defend its Kishwaukee River Conference championship. The Rockets won 19 games, including 12 in 2025, with Hannemann operating coach Mike Noll’s triple-option offense the past two falls.

Hannemann helped coach Rich Petska’s basketball team post 42 wins the past two winters as a starting guard/sixth man.

“He’s a great leader, a great kid, a super-smart kid,” Rockets baseball coach Mike Giese said of Hannemann, an A student who plans to focus on academics in college and not play a sport.

Last spring, Hannemann, a proven winner, started on a baseball team that won eight games.

Wait, only eight? That’s crazy, eight.

Granted, the Rockets didn’t have a single senior on last year’s squad. But R-B won 19 games Hannemann’s sophomore year and counted 15 wins the previous season. The season before that, in 2022, the Rockets finished second in the state in Class 2A.

Whatever ills the Rockets had last season, no one was immune to it. A winning program lost games consistently. Even Hannemann struggled, especially at the plate, after he hit better than .300 as a sophomore.

“He stumbled a little bit, but that was everybody,” Giese said.

“It wasn’t good,” Hannemann said of his 2025 batting average. ”Last year, it was like, ‘I got to do all these things because there are no seniors.’ I just put a little too big of a load on myself. This offseason I spent a lot of time getting my swing right, and then I realized I got a bunch of great baseball players around me to pick up slack.”

This season, Hannemann is more relaxed and “calm in the batter’s box,” he said. His statistics support his take, and the proud program of Giese, a Class of 2024 IHSBCA Hall of Fame inductee, is winning baseball games again, consistently.

R-B headed into the week 10-8-1 and tied for first place in the KRC with defending champ Johnsburg, Marengo and Woodstock. The Rockets’ lineup includes veterans Hannemann, Ryan Scholberg, Logan Johnson, Bryce Kowall, Cooper Nagel and Grayson Morningstar, plus youngsters Anthony Harvey, Max Martin and Lucas Bynum.

It’s almost like three years ago again, when Giese called up Hannemann after the varsity’s 2-9 start. With Hannemann at first base, the Rockets rolled, winning 13 of 16.

“We just had to figure out the leadership a little bit [after last season] and find out how the pieces were going to lay,” Hannemann said. “This year we have the same team, plus our freshman, Lucas [Bynum], and things are going a lot better.”

The 185-pound Hannemann, who’s 6-foot-4 “with cleats,” he joked, is hitting .404 in 52 at-bats with a .500 on-base percentage. His 12 RBIs are second most on the team, and he even leads the club in stolen bases with 12. He’s manned right field when not patrolling first base and has emerged as a reliable closer, picking up two saves while striking out 11 in six appearances.

“He’s doing it all,” Giese said.

Giese values Hannemann’s bat so much that he’ll play him in the outfield when he wants to get Johnson or Harvey playing-time at first base.

“We got two great hitters in Logan [Johnson] and Anthony [Harvey],” Hannemann said. “They’re both first basemen, so we got to find a spot for them in the lineup.”

The youngest of three children on Bill and Niccole, Hannemann plans to pursue a business degree from Michigan State University. He considers baseball his favorite sport, and two-year starting QBs who win often can find homes if they want to play ball at the next level.

“If I really tried to get my name out there and everything, I think I could have gone somewhere to play something,” Hannemann said. “But I just decided that I wanted to focus more on academics. Maybe there’s some club baseball in my future.”

Spotting Hannemann anywhere isn’t hard. Not with that so-blond-it’s almost-white hair. He says he gets his light locks from his mother, who’s abundantly blonde.

“It’s pretty white here,” Hannemann said with a laugh, pointing to his bangs while removing his cap.

Even if Hannemann never hits another homer, there will be more happy days ahead for him. R-B’s scheduled game Saturday was canceled because Westmont had bus issues, Giese said. So, the Rockets rolled out their batting cage and took BP, sun on their shoulders.

It felt like a win, another one.

“Even a day like this, our game gets canceled and it stinks for everybody, but we’re still here doing some live at-bats,” Hannemann said. “It’s a great time with everybody.”