C-G's Vilardo just crushed it

Cary-Grove’s Mike Vilardo is the Northwest Herald Baseball Player of the Year. Vilardo hit .436 with an area-best 15 home runs and 57 RBIs for the Trojans this season. C-G advanced to an IHSA Class 4A sectional championship game for the third consecutive year. (Lauren M. Anderson - landerson@nwherald.com)

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Living in such close proximity to Cary-Grove High School carries its benefits for Trojans coach Don Sutherland.

Sutherland can see when players are putting in extra work, often by just peeking out his window. And it came as no surprise to Sutherland, on one particular Sunday afternoon this spring, when he saw his best player honing his swing.

“No one has spent more time in the batting tunnel than Michael Vilardo,” Sutherland said. “I know who’s over at the diamond and who isn’t. He put some time in on a Sunday, and that corresponded to the week he went off.”

Vilardo had not hit well in the previous week. Shortly after working things out, Vilardo experienced a week of which most players dream, hitting seven home runs and driving in 19 runs.

The Trojans’ senior shortstop maintained a torrid level the rest of the season and finished with a .436 batting average and area-best totals with 15 home runs and 57 RBIs. He also stole 30 bases in 31 attempts and played solid defense at shortstop, making him the overwhelming choice for Northwest Herald Player of the Year. The Player of the Year is selected by the sports staff with input from area coaches.

“That was the best week of my life,” Vilardo said. “That was a tremendous streak. Teams were pitching around me, but I took fastballs the other way. The best thing I did this season was hitting the ball to all fields with power.”

Vilardo was selected to the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Class 4A All-State team and was named to Prep Baseball Report’s All-State team.

Although McHenry ended C-G’s string of consecutive Fox Valley Conference Valley Division titles at three, the Trojans (27-10) reached a sectional championship game for the third consecutive season.

With second baseman Matt Byrne leading off, third baseman Nick Richter (.464) hitting second, Vilardo in the No. 3 spot and center fielder-pitcher Matt Panek (.398, 49 RBIs) at cleanup, the top of C-G’s order was devastating.

“It’s an honor playing with him,” said Richter, who has played with Vilardo since the fifth grade. “We’ve kind of always batted where we were. I knew he could put up those numbers. My goal was to get on base; I knew he would drive me in somehow.”

C-G’s April 12 game against Crystal Lake South served an example of how Vilardo could hurt a team. Although the Trojans lost that game, 7-6, Vilardo was 2 for 3 with a two-run homer in the first inning. In the fifth, he walked, stole second, moved to third in a fly ball and scored on a strikeout in the dirt. As soon as catcher Dom Winiecki threw to first base, Vilardo broke for home and beat the throw back. With C-G down two runs in the bottom of the seventh, he singled and scored.

“Offensively, he had as good a year as anybody’s had since I’ve been around,” said Sutherland, who has coached C-G for 24 years.

Vilardo’s preparation had a lot to do with it, but he said the lineup did as well.

“We had a great lineup,” said Vilardo, who signed with NCAA Division I Richmond in November. “Without my teammates in front and behind me, my numbers wouldn’t have been nearly as good. I would not have been able to amass those RBIs.”

Vilardo had nine RBIs in one game, which ties him for 17th on the records list in the IHSA’s website. He hit .342 with six homers and 32 RBIs and was a Northwest Herald All-Area second-team selection last year. Sutherland said Vilardo worked hard to improve his discipline this season.

Vilardo’s final game, in the IHSA Class 4A DeKalb Sectional championship, was one he would like to forget. In a matchup with Streamwood left-handed ace Josh Harris, who will pitch at Villanova, Vilardo struck out four times, including the last out of the game with the tying run at third base.

“It was a tough way to end, but it was a great journey,” Vilardo said.

Vilardo was on the bench as a sophomore when the Trojans took fourth in the 2009 Class 4A State Tournament. He hit 21 homers and drove in 89 runs over his final two seasons.

“He got himself out sometimes last year,” Sutherland said. “He had a good swing, but he had to close down the strike zone. He did a nice job getting pitches he could attack and taking the walks people were giving him out of respect.”

Vilardo also was the Northwest Herald Hockey Player of the Year and played Tier-I hockey, the highest level of youth hockey, for eight years. He left the U.S. National Training Development Program U18 team last year just in time so he could play baseball at C-G as a junior.

“It just seemed amazing,” Richter said. “He’s been doing crazy things like that his whole life, and this year it was him putting it together in front of this big of an audience. It almost seemed like every time he got up he was going to put it out of the ballpark.”