Stephen Sparks will continue his baseball career at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, joining his teammate Carter Chapin there.
“It has always been a dream since I was a youth to play baseball in college,” Sparks said. “I have been wanting to play college baseball for a long time and I didn’t think I was going to get to play, but then Sandburg reached out (Coach Brandon Porter) and I am getting to live out my dream.
Sparks said he feels good knowing Chapin is playing there, too.
“We’ve done a lot of the stuff they do at the JuCo and college level, we do a lot of the drills at practice that Coach Burling (Zach) used to do in JuCo and at WIU (Western Illinois University),” he noted. “It shouldn’t be that big of an adjustment for me as we do about the same stuff here and it has prepared me well.”
Sparks will study industrial maintenance at Sandburg. After two years at Sandburg, he hopes to continue to play baseball and study industrial maintenance at a four-year school.
Sparks has been a starter for over two seasons, and like Chapin and Shawn Watkins Jr., “one of those irreplaceable guys and a staple for us,” Illini West Baseball Coach Zach Burling commented.
“Stephen’s one of those guys, if he’s got guys on base, he’s got a good chance to knock them in,” Burling said. “He’s one of our top three hitters.”
This season, Sparks batted .321 with 34 hits and 33 runs batted in.
“I love him in the five spot because even with two strikes, he does a great job of staying back and driving the ball to the opposite field to score those runners,” Burling noted. “He plays good defense in right field and could probably play left or right field in college. He’s got a great arm and he’s got a frame to put some muscle on, too. He could probably hit for power, you know, once he starts training a little bit after the season’s over in the weight room.”