Lansing’s Sperger plays in Future Games

Zack Sperger has two years left on Lansing’s baseball team and is already standing out at the national level. Recently, he traveled down to Georgia to take part in Prep Baseball Report’s Future Games as one of 23 players selected for Team New York. The Future Games highlighted the best uncommitted underclassmen around the country with many college scouts in attendance.

Sperger performed well against the high level of competition, going 2-5 with a pair of singles, a walk and a stolen base. He looked back on the weekend in Georgia.

“It was fun, and the competition was good,” Sperger said. “Obviously, it was really tough against the best guys in the country, but being selected was nice. Facing better competition than up here is nice since, in school ball, I don’t really get to face that. So, actually playing kids of a higher caliber is always fun.”

This was his second trip to the Future Games after attending the summer before his freshman year. That experience helped him out this time around.

“I went in eighth grade, and that was kind of a warm-up,” Sperger said. “I did OK down there. But this year, I knew what to expect. I’ve been facing that all summer. I’ve played in a bunch of Perfect Game tournaments and faced a lot of commits and a lot of really high-ranked kids.”

It’s been a very busy summer for Sperger. He was in Georgia a week prior to the Future Games for a different tournament and is currently in New Jersey for the week for another. It’s time-consuming, but Sperger sees it as necessary for him to be the player he wants to be.

“It’s tough with the flying stuff,” he said. “Going to Jersey is not that bad. That’s a four-hour car ride. It sucks when you want to hang out with your friends and stuff, but that’s not really my goal, I realize. I’m just thinking long term, and that’s baseball in college.”

He’s certainly on the right trajectory, as only a select group of student-athletes from each state participate in the Future Games. Though he had participated in the past, this year was no guarantee.

“I actually didn’t know if I was going to get invited to the Future Games,” Sperger said. “That’s really big. You’ve got 480 of the best guys in New York at the state games, which already has a ton of schools there. Then Dan Cevette, [president of Prep Baseball Report], hand selects the top 20. There are about 15,000 amateur baseball players in high school baseball, and he selected 20 to go down to Georgia to play against other states. That’s an honor. I don’t know if I was really expecting that.”

While at the Future Games, measurements are recorded for each player such as speed, exit velocity, throwing velocity and bat speed. Sperger takes a lot of pride in his speed on the basepaths and showed noticeable improvement in the 60-yard dash this year.

“Last year, I ran a 7.4 and I was talking to one school from North Carolina, and he just told me I should try to get that down more,” he said. “I just used that as fuel and I worked on it all offseason. Now, I run a 6.7. That’s the biggest thing I worked on this offseason, but I was obviously still developing other skill sets. Speed is definitely number one, though. Speed kills.”

The offseason work is paying dividends for Sperger, who is no longer a two-sport athlete at Lansing so he can focus on baseball. In his mind, the offseason is a critical time for skill development.

“It’s crucial,” Sperger said. “I dropped basketball last year just because I wanted to work out this offseason. It was my main goal to get a lot better, and it paid off in varsity ball. We didn’t have the best regular season, but as a seven-seed, we went to the finals past the two and three seeds, which is nice. I played well during that, so the numbers just speak for themselves. Offseason is one of the most important times during baseball.”

Heading into his junior year, Sperger is already receiving attention from colleges. He gave his advice to younger athletes who have aspirations of playing at the collegiate level.

“Don’t listen to everybody,” Sperger said. “Keep your circle small of people whose opinions you want to listen to. I was told a bunch of stuff. When I went down to Georgia in eighth grade, one of my travel ball coaches said, ‘Oh, I heard you struggled.’ It’s those little things I really remember. So, don’t listen to anybody’s opinion and put your head down and just work. That’ll speak for itself.”

We are a few months away from the next varsity baseball season when Sperger and the Bobcats will look to build upon their Section IV Championship appearance. Sperger pitched a stellar complete game against Trumansburg in the finals but unfortunately came one out shy of a victory. With that on his mind, Sperger’s goals for next season are simple.

“Win a sectional title, obviously,” he said. “We didn’t really expect this year to go head-to-head with Trumansburg. That’s a game that we should have won in my opinion, but they came up big in the last inning. We left a lot of runners on base, and you can’t win a game scoring two runs at the end of the day. We want to win a sectional championship, and it’s not far out of sight, but we’ve got some work to do as a team.”

Sperger is continuing to put the work in, currently playing in New Jersey for the week. He then will head down to New Jersey again the following weekend for another tournament. The standout junior is hoping the offseason work will help Lansing to get over the hump next season.