EFFINGHAM — Following an excellent senior season, Effingham shortstop Camden Raddatz has earned Effingham Daily News co-Baseball Player of the Year.
The Kaskaskia College recruit batted .444 with a .504 on-base percentage, a .768 slugging percentage and a 1.272 on-base-plus-slugging percentage for the Flaming Hearts. He had 44 hits — 12 were doubles, one was a triple, and six were home runs — and had 37 RBI.
“It was an enjoyable one,” said Raddatz of his season. “I learned early on in the year to not take stuff for granted. I made sure to make the most of what I was given and I think from pitch one, game one, I was locked in. We didn’t get as far as we wanted to, but it was a great group of guys to play with.”
Raddatz did all this less than five months after tearing his ACL during the second football game of the year.
“It was still early in the football season, which gave him time to have the surgery and be able to go through all the physical therapy and meeting with his doctors again,” head coach Curran McNeely said. “When it happened, it gave him enough time to prepare himself to be able to play his senior year. He was very upfront and forward of what he could and couldn’t do on certain days. An injury like that takes time and there were days he couldn’t go as hard as he would have liked to. He never complained about it.
“You look back at a kid like that and call him a ‘program kid,’ where he continued to go about his business and when he was presented opportunities to perform, he did.”
The injury was the second time in his high school career that Raddatz suffered an ACL tear. The first came as a freshman.
McNeely remembers that year and thinks that Raddatz may have had a shot to compete for varsity time if it hadn’t been for the situation.
“Looking back to his freshman year, he probably had an opportunity to be one of our first freshman to get some varsity time. He tore his ACL in that one knee and he had to work his butt off to get back to where he was,” he said.
It was never easy for Raddatz in any year he played.
McNeely said that he struggled during his sophomore year and then again at the beginning of his junior year.
Everything started to click in the latter part of his junior season when he helped EHS reach the state tournament for the first time in 81 years.
Raddatz learned a lot from that run; the main thing being how to be a leader, which he was tasked to do this past season.
“I’ve always had leaders in my life, people to look up to, but this year, I was a senior, so it was different pressure,” Raddatz said.
Raddatz credited McNeely, along with last year’s senior class, as some of the primary individuals he looked up to the most.
“Coach McNeely. He’s a great role model on and off the field,” Raddatz said. “Josh McDevitt was a great guy to be teammates with. Jack Harper, Quest Hull, Myles Maxedon, Evan Waymoth — all the seniors last year were a group of guys I grew up with my entire life.”
Now, Raddatz will transition to the college ranks and play in arguably one of the best junior college baseball conferences in the country. Kaskaskia plays with the likes of John A. Logan and Wabash Valley — who are perennial powers.
“It’s awesome competition over there,” Raddatz said. “It is one of the best conferences in the nation for JUCO baseball. I’ll be seeing good arms every day, week in and week out, so it will really test me and I’m looking forward to competing.”
He’s bringing a hot bat with him, which head coach Mitch Koester is excited to have.
“A guy that could come in and immediately impact the lineup,” said Koester of Raddatz. “He has proven he can hit at a high level.”
Raddatz thanks Extreme Elite Baseball Club, in Collinsville, for helping him sharpen his skills.
“Extreme Elite in Collinsville does a tremendous job of not only helping you out with baseball but also helping you out with life,” Raddatz said. “They preach, ‘Be a good person. Be a good teammate and honor God with everything you do.’ So, I think that was a really big thing going over there. It’s a family over there and the coaches have awesome connections.”
Raddatz played for the club the summer leading into their senior year and partially this summer.
He has since reaped the rewards.