He’s back on top

It has been a long year-and-a-half for Neil Hugenberg.
By his own admission, there was a time when the Hannibal senior pitcher did not think he would ever get to stare down a batter from the mound again.
Rewind to April 2, 2008. Hugenberg had been fighting what he would soon find out was an extra half of a vertebrae in his back that was causing him increasing amounts of pain. It became so bad at one point that he left the ’07-’08 basketball season in hopes of salvaging his baseball season.
“I would ice my back after each game,” Hugenberg said. “But, by halftime up at Borgia at the Thanksgiving Tournament, I just couldn’t go back out.”
Few would argue that he didn’t have good reason for doing so. Hugenberg’s skill on the mound had been affirmed just a year prior when he was named as an All-State pitcher, sporting a .48 ERA.
But after what the senior described as “the slowest double ever” against the Hickman Kewpies, it became clear that the sacrifice had been in vain.
“I went to put my hands on my knees and I couldn’t straighten back up,” he said. “It was just spazing out. I thought it was over.”
For Hannibal head baseball coach Clint Graham, it was clear almost instantly that something was not right as soon as he called for a courtesy runner.
“Neil never wants to come out of a baseball game,” Graham said. “When I have to take him out when he is pitching, I more or less have to drag him out of there.”
For the rest of the season, it was the bench for the hurler. But it was not the games that Hugenberg said he missed most, but the practices.
“I was at physical therapy while everybody else was at practice,” he said. “Everybody was going to practice and having fun and I was doing exercises and getting shots.”
The senior credited his parents and his coaches for pushing him through the early stages of therapy. The workouts consisted of balance drills and drills with bladder balls in the beginning, which he described as terrible.
All the while, the then-junior faced what he thought was a bleak future without baseball. That was, until one of his physical trainers, Hannibal Regional Medical Center’s Aaron Zook, first gave him a glimmer of hope for the season to come. He said Zook made him a promise that he would be able to get back on the field, which completely changed the way Hugenberg approached his physical therapy.
“It motivated me, because exercising didn’t seem pointless anymore,” Hugenberg said. “For a while there, the exercises just seemed stupid. They weren’t doing anything and it wasn’t helping.”
From there, the pitcher slowly made the progress he needed. He played fall ball, filling in more as a designated hitter than anything, but described the experience as awkward and difficult. But an injury-free basketball season and some early indicators at winter open gyms gave both him and Graham enough courage to make the return to the mound.
“The first day he threw off the mound for me, I was really nervous,” Graham said. “I didn’t know how his body was going to react. The next day was pretty nerve-racking, too. He helps me at the middle school and the first thing that I asked him was ‘How is your leg? How is your back?’ And he said, ‘Coach, I don’t have any pain.’”
But not all of Hugenberg’s challenges in the comeback process were physical. In the hours leading up to the season’s opener against conference rival Kirksville, Hugenberg said his nerves were as bad as they have ever been.
“I’d been out for a year-and-a-half,” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to throw 60-miles-per hour, 70-miles-per hour, or throw an inning and be done. They had me on a pitch count, so I knew I wasn’t going the full distance. But, when you work that hard, it’s pretty nerve-racking.”
Though, unlike the year before, this time the sacrifice paid off. Not only did both Hugenberg and the Pirates pick up the 12-2 win, but he also earned back something much more valuable – his confidence.
“For the first couple of games, I was worried about if I should take ibuprofen afterward or if I should stretch in the dugout,” he said. “My mind was on everything else but the actual game. Now I can go back to pitching again and I don’t have to worry about that anymore. It’s just a lot easier now.”
And Hugenberg has certainly made it look easy this season. In his past two starts, he has struck out a combined 31 batters – 17 against the Mexico Bulldogs and 14 against the Boonville Pirates. And with the district tournament right around the corner, Graham said he knows just who he will go to in those clutch situations.
“[Neil is] just that type of pitcher,” Graham said. “… Teams know that if Hugenberg is on the mound, it is going to be a battle. … He wants to be in those big games. As a pitcher, you’ve got to want the ball in the big situations and you’ve got to want to be the man for your team and that’s what Neil does.”