L-W East finds a way to ground Eagles

Besides the obvious positive of advancing to today's Lockport Regional title game via Wednesday's 9-1 victory over Sandburg, Lincoln-Way East got an added bonus.

The Griffins took down their SouthWest Suburban rival Eagles in the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association's Summer League Tournament semifinals to get there.

"It feels really good," Lincoln-Way East second baseman Spencer Stanek said. "We lost to them freshman year, sophomore year, and we lost to them last year. This is the first time we really beat them, so it feels great."

Stanek's two-run double in the second that started the scoring for the Griffins. Stanek lined the ball down the first-base line, and as Sandburg first baseman Phil Piecuch went to scoop the ball, it took a funny hop over his head and rolled into the outfield.

"I got lucky on that one," Stanek said. "It took that weird hop over the first baseman. We were lucky it took that hop over his head. I was trying to put the ball in play with men on second and third."

Lincoln-Way East (12-2) scored another run in the inning on Derek Siadak's RBI single. The Griffins scored three runs in both the sixth and seven innings.

As good as the offense was Wednesday, pitcher Jake Prieto was better, throwing a complete game with four strikeouts, no walks and scattering eight hits.

Prieto showed signs of fatigue late, but was able to go the route. Griffins left fielder Ryan Herman made a diving catch on a ball for the game's final out.

"About the sixth inning I felt tired, but I had to finish it," Prieto said. "I felt good at 3-0, but when I did give up that one run, I wanted a couple more (runs in support) just to make me feel better."

Prieto's lone mistake came in the fifth, when Sandburg pinch-hitter Matt Mahoney took him deep to left field.

"Prieto did an unbelievable job," Lincoln-Way East coach Paul Babcock said. "He hit enough spots at the kneecaps beautifully, and that's where the zone was. He got a couple guys 3-0, 2-0, but just kept pouring it in there and let them get themselves out."

And after being seeded so low they were forced to play a play-in game Monday, the Griffins will meet Minooka at 4:15 p.m. today for the regional title.

"Joliet gave us everything we could handle (Monday), and they're a good, solid baseball team," Babcock said. "That was a good start for us to beat a good team like that and build confidence."

Sandburg fell to 17-4.

Minooka 4, Lockport 3: After his team's six-error performance in Tuesday's 7-5 win over Lincoln-Way North, Lockport coach Steve Stanicek just wanted to see his team play better defensively Wednesday.

For five innings, that was the case before the Porters defense made two key errors in the sixth that allowed Minooka to pull ahead for good.

"We talked about it that we needed to do three things today, and one of them was our ability to play catch," Stanicek said. "When you give a team that can swing the bat like Minooka extra outs in an inning ... you can only dodge that bullet for so long."

Minooka (10-3) broke a 1-1 tie in the sixth with three runs, thanks to Lockport errors in the infield and outfield.

The runs came back to hurt the Porters (20-3) in the seventh as they scored twice on wild pitches.

"Those runs didn't mean anything except to make the score closer," Stanicek said. "We had to get somebody on to force extra innings."