2025 Times Baseball Player of the Year: Marquette’s Alec Novotney

There’s a term for when an athlete’s statistics seem almost too good to be recorded in real life – video-game numbers.

Marquette junior Alec Novotney put up video-game numbers this season in helping lead his team to a 35-3 mark and a second consecutive Class 1A state championship.

In 16 appearances (13 starts), the Crusaders ace and 2025 Times Baseball Player of the Year had an 11-0 record and a 1.00 ERA.

Wait, it gets better.

In 63 innings, the crafty and at times overpowering right-hander issued just nine walks and struck out 114 batters, an outrageous ratio of 12.7:1. He tossed 70% of his nearly 900 pitches during the season for strikes.

“The biggest thing for me is throwing first-pitch strikes. If I can do that, it sets up a lot of options from there,” said Novotney, who earned the pitching win in both the state semifinal and title games.

“We have a really good defense, so we are always talking about pitching to contact. I think any of us that pitch know that we don’t have to try and strike out every batter. But I also feel we all have that mentality of, ‘I’m going to find a way to get you out any way I can.’

“To be honest, I’m really not thinking about strikeouts. They just kind of happen most of the time.”

As Marquette’s leadoff batter, Novotney excelled at the plate as well, hitting .415 with 45 runs scored, 11 doubles, two triples, one home run, 22 RBIs and 21 stolen bases.

Novotney – the defending Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Class 1A Player of the Year – was voted to the Tri-County All-Conference first team, the TCC’s Pitcher of the Year for the second straight season and Tri-County Player of the Year for the first time. He also was an IHSBCA Class 1A All-State Team honoree for the second straight season and last week named second-team all-state by Prep Baseball Illinois, which recognizes players regardless of school size.

“I’m guessing like most of us, I started with T-ball,” Novotney said. “I was always playing baseball, football and basketball growing up, and whatever season it was, that was my favorite sport. I’m not exactly sure when, but baseball became the sport that I started to work on more. But really, baseball has always been my favorite. It’s what I love to do.

“I’ve always either played shortstop or pitched. They were the spots I liked the best, and I was fortunate to get to not really have to move away from them.

“My dad, Josh, has taught me the game. He played here at Marquette and in college [Western Kentucky University], so he knows the game. We are always talking after games about certain situations, and if they didn’t go well what I need to do to fix it.”

Novotney said the season went as the team and he would have hoped, except for a two-game losing stretch in late April.

“I think we were very confident coming into the season, but then we lost two straight games,” Novotney said. “I don’t feel like we doubted ourselves, but it didn’t sit too well with anyone. It was easily the two worst games defensively we had, and we struck out way too much.

“The day after losing to St. Bede, we had a team talk at practice about how we needed to figure things out and get back on track. We talked a lot about sticking together.”

Figure it out they did, closing the season on an 18-game winning streak, including Novotney pitching the final three iniings of Marquette’s walk-off, 6-5 win over Father McGivney in the 1A state championship game at Illinois Field in Champaign.

“The next game was better, and the next game better than that one,” Novotney said. “That’s kind of how we finished the season, playing better in every game. I think we all knew we could make it to and win state again, but having the experience of going through it the season before, we all knew we had to focus on just the next game.

“That’s what we did, and it all worked out.”