Alden-Hebron’s Wyatt Armbrust hunts excellence

Scruffy-faced Wyatt Armbrust hitches the right pant leg of his black Alden-Hebron baseball uniform to his knee and reveals an elastic bandage that covers his entire shin.

The wrap, covered in infield dirt from Armbrust’s busy day of helping the Giants beat visiting Faith Christian 17-8 on Saturday morning, protects a lengthy gash, compliments of an opponent’s cleat a few days earlier.

“He probably should have gotten stitches,” A-H coach Brian Engelbrecht said of the rugged Armbrust, who’s his best player. “He just wanted to play through it.”

Armbrust said the doctor gave him options to treat his bloody leg: stitches, staples, glue or nothing. Armbrust chose to leave the wound open and let it heal on its own, thus minimizing the chance of it getting infected, he said.

His focus is on results, not looks. He’ll deal with the pain, which is tolerable, because when you’re used to playing and working outdoors, shooting line drives on a baseball diamond one day and firing shotgun pellets at a deer or pheasant the next day, a little cut isn’t going to stop you.

“I’ll be able to play,” Armbrust said with a laugh and a shrug.

Armbrust played errorless ball at shortstop Saturday, while going 3 for 5 with a double and three RBIs, but he has played catcher all season. The shin guard he wears while squatting behind home plate irritates his leg injury, thus explaining the versatile athlete’s switch to shortstop.

“I’m not sure if I’ll be catching any more games the rest of the season,” Armbrust said.

Just because he may be done framing fastballs doesn’t mean he’s done catching. Fish, that is.

He’s caught northern pike, muskie and walleye fishing in waters near home and anywhere around Lake Geneva.

A multisport performer at tiny A-H since his freshman year – he even competed in two winter sports (wresting and basketball) at the same time his sophomore and junior years – Armbrust is indeed an outdoorsman.

That’s not uncommon for any kid growing up in the rural areas of northern Illinois, minutes away from the many vast fields in Wisconsin. But not all teenagers are as versatile, as ambitious and as tough as the 6-foot, 205-pound Armbrust, who’s also been an honor roll regular in high school.

“I might get high honor roll this year,” said Armbrust, who has his last day of school Wednesday and will graduate Sunday.

To celebrate all he’s done at A-H, which includes earning Illinois High School Football Coaches Association honorable mention all-state honors for eight-man ball his sophomore and senior years, it might be time to break out the jerky.

Making jerky is another one of Armbrust’s many hobbies.

“It’s mainly my older brother [Jesse] who does it,” Armbrust said. “He shot a deer this year. He had it delivered to a meat-packaging place, so they gutted it and took all the meat out, and they processed it for us. So that’s where we got the jerky, but we have made our own jerky in the past. You got to like dehydrate it and then put the spices or whatever you want on it.”

Engelbrecht has tried the jerky and devoured it. Cracked black pepper and another less spicy jerky is what Armbrust recalls giving his baseball coach.

“I told him I’d give him cash,” said Engelbrecht, joking. “It was deer jerky. It was really good. It was a couple of different flavors, too.”

“I think it’s pretty good,” Armbrust said. “I’d say it’s better than beef jerky.”

Alas for Armbrust’s baseball teammates, they have missed out on jerky treats.

“They keep asking,” Armbrust said. “But the family usually eats it before we’re able to give it out.”

When there are three boys growing up in one house, food doesn’t last. Ambrust is the middle son of Nick and Melissa. Jesse is 20, and middle schooler Cohl is 14. The Armbrust’s Hebron home sits on about 7 acres and includes multiple barns, pigs and steers.

“We beat up on each other a lot,” Armbrust said of him and his brothers.

No wonder Armbrust is one tough football player. His senior season of eight-man football included him being named co-MVP of the Northeastern Athletic Conference after after rushing for 873 yards and 13 touchdowns, catching 21 passes, including 3 TDs, racking up 47 solo tackles and intercepting two passes.

If not for fracturing his femur and spraining a knee ligament his junior year, the fullback/linebacker might have been a three-time all-state player. He’s talking to college football coaches from Monmouth, Aurora and Carroll.

Playing two sports his sophomore and junior years became too much to navigate. He then he missed most of his junior baseball season after having surgery to remove a cyst on his lower back.

“But he still came to practice every day,” Engelbrecht said. “A lot of guys get hurt and they disappear until they start feeling better. Just his presence, it’s important.”

Armbrust’s hand-eye hitting skill comes in handy in another hobby of his: trap shooting. Clay pigeons are sometimes as helpless as hanging breaking balls.

Armbrust will sometimes trap shoot in his backyard, he said, and he even competes for the Wilmot Panthers shooting team. The Panthers travel throughout Wisconsin going to different trap shoots.

“You shoot 25 [clay pigeons] in a round,” Armbrust said. “I can usually shoot between 20 and 25 each time. ... It’s up there with some of my favorite sports.”

Armbrust hunts duck, geese, deer, turkey and pheasants. He helps area farmers with harvesting. His dad, after all, grew up as a farmer, and his mom has a couple of farmers in her family.

Alden-Hebron, which counts only a little more than 100 kids in the school, could use more students, more Wyatt Armbrusts.

“It’s not just what he does during the games,” Engelbrecht said. “He keeps the guys in line.”

He might feed his teammates jerky next.