Ramblers crush Niles West

Loyola’s Charlie McElveen has been looking for his power swing all season long.

The senior left fielder came into the Ramblers’ Glenbrook South Sectional semifinal game against Niles West with just one home run after hitting nine last year.

That power outage quickly disappeared as McElveen crushed a pair of two-run homers in his first two at-bats to lead Loyola to an 11-4 victory over the Wolves.

“It’s been a tough year and I haven’t been performing like I wanted,” McElveen said. “I wasn’t coming out trying to hit home runs but I saw the ball well and put a good swing on it.”

McElveen, who’s hitting .379 on the year, finished the day 4-for-5 with the two homers, a double, five RBI and three runs scored.

“(McElveen) had a tremendous amount of success last year and he had high expectations,” said Ramblers’ head coach Bill San Hamel. “I think he put a lot of pressure on himself and so did the guys on the team. But to his credit he kept working hard and really turned it around.”

Michael Fallon had a double and drove in a pair of runs for Loyola (23-12) while Joe Stevens, Luke Lopatka and Paul Sciortino added an RBI each. James McCaskey, the great grandson of George Halas, picked up the win pitching four innings while allowing three unearned runs on three hits and two walks.

The Ramblers led 7-0 before Niles West (28-8) scored three times and loaded the bases in the bottom of the third. But a strikeout ended the rally and Loyola extended the lead to 10-3 in the fifth.

Adonis Tountas, Tom Endres and Brendan Ryan each had an RBI for the Wolves.

The third-seeded Ramblers will meet top-seeded New Trier in the sectional championship game 10 a.m. Saturday.