Brookfield's run ends in regional final

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Not all fairy tales have happy endings, as Brookfield discovered on Tuesday.

The Illinois state champs, down to 12 players from their original 18 and pretty much tapped out pitching-wise, lost 11-0 in six innings and 16-6 in five innings to the Hammond Chiefs in the championship round of the Senior Babe Ruth (17-18) Ohio Valley Regional at T.F. North High School.

Hammond (40-12), which lost 7-6 to Brookfield in Monday's winners' bracket final, goes to Newark, Ohio, next week for its ninth World Series appearance overall and fifth in the past six seasons.

Brookfield's players and coaches, meanwhile, head off to college or back to work -- with some happy memories of the program's best finish in a quarter-century or so.

"I'm happy," manager Vince Stafford said. "I've never been prouder of a bunch of guys. These guys all got along. We were having a good time."

The Brookfield players -- drawn from Riverside-Brookfield, Lyons and Morton -- showed it by keeping up a running commentary all day long, needling each other, the Chiefs and even some fans.

"I told them, 'This is how we got here,'" Stafford said. "We didn't take ourselves overly [seriously]."

At the same time, they did respect the Chiefs.

"You kind of know when you're going to lose," the Brookfield manager said. "You see a better team, it's tough. We respect the other team."

Brookfield couldn't solve Chiefs starter Mike Pokers (8-1) in the opener. Pitching on two days' rest, Pokers threw one-hit ball over four innings before reaching his 40-pitch limit. Tony Balcazar completed the one-hitter.

Mike Kozlowski (2-for-4, two RBI) and Pokers (2-for-2, RBI) led Hammond's 10-hit attack. Shortstop Cody Brown had Brookfield's lone hit, a one-out single in the first.

The Chiefs took command in the second game with a nine-run second inning capped by Nick Hladek's two-run homer. Hammond's catcher went deep two more times, hitting a three-run shot in a four-run fourth and a two-run blast in the fifth.

"I was really looking to go the other way," he said. "But they kept coming inside on me, so I tried to do what I could with it."

For Brookfield, Brown had two more hits, Jason Slechta was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and Pat Cullen slugged a two-run double. 

mclark@chicagosuntimes.com