Niles West’s spectacular summer season came to an end with a 13-0 loss to Maine South in the semifinals of the Palatine Regional in the 2010 Phil Lawler Summer Classic, Wednesday, July 21.

While the defeat was disappointing, the Wolves accomplished a lot this summer, finishing with a 17-4 record and head coach Garry Gustafson is pleased with his team’s performance.

“We didn’t play well today and my hat goes off to Maine South, but we played well all summer long,” Gustafson said. “We played good baseball and beat a good Fremd club and a good Lane team to get here. You have to be doing something right just to get here. “I think we had a very, very productive summer. We swung the bats well all summer.

Our pitching is something we’re going to have to work on though. But I think we accomplished a lot and are a better ballclub now.”

Niles West opened the summer playoffs as the No. 4 seed and knocked off 13th-seeded Lane Tech 8-7 on July 19. The Wolves came back the next day to face fifth-seeded Fremd and won another nail-biter by a final score of 9-8 pushing them into the semifinals against a very good Maine South squad that finished in the top eight of Class 4A in the spring.

Niles West will have a pretty young team going into next spring, so the experience was extremely valuable. And with those players having such a strong summer, things bode well for the Wolves’ future.

Right now Gustafson is looking at an infield of three juniors and a sophomore with a junior behind the plate. One of the three outfielders will be a junior as well.

“We’re a young team and these guys have come a long way from the beginning of the summer to where we are now,” Gustafson said. “It was certainly a productive summer, it’s just too bad you end it this way.”

One of the stars of this summer was junior Jason Meager, who started at third base but can also play shortstop and will pitch. Sophomore shortstop Kyle Colletta also had a fantastic summer.

“(Meager) started as a sophomore and Kyle Colletta was a big part of our ballclub last year and he started as a freshman and we’ve only had one kid do that,” Gustafson said. “We just weren’t hitting the ball today,” Meager said of the Wolves who were no-hit by Maine South’s Will Krug. “Every day this summer, we’ve been hitting the ball pretty good but today it just wasn’t working. Their pitcher was throwing the ball hard and had some pretty decent movement.”

“They got all the breaks and hit the ball hard all the time,” Colletta said. “There was nothing we could do. Nick (Wheeler) pitched his butt off.”

As a whole though, both players are happy with what they accomplished during the summer.

“We enjoyed the summer and it was a lot of fun,” Meager said. “It was nice to play and see how everyone did. I think I improved a lot.”

“It was a really productive summer for us,” Colletta added. “We ended much better than we started which is really big because we have momentum going into next year. I think everyone sticking together during the summer and everyone showing up was really big. We had good chemistry.”

Other top players that shined this summer were Max Markoff and Evan Athensiou at second base.

“We had a good summer and those guys stepped up,” Gustafson added. “As far as our pitching goes Wheeler and (Kenny) Blanchard and Meager, those are guys who will have to step up for us if we’re going to have a productive spring and I think they will.”

“We lost a lot of seniors so finishing strong in the summer was big,” Colletta added. “I expect nothing less than conference champions for us.”