Fateful move for Mustangs' Stearns

St. Rita's Kyle Stearns (3) celebrates with teammates after driving in a run against Sandburg.
(Art Vassy/SouthtownStar)

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Nearly three years ago, Kyle Stearns had a date with fate.

He just didn't realize it at the time.

The St. Rita junior easily could have been on the other side of Monday's Class 4A Crestwood Supersectional outcome between St. Rita and Sandburg, a game the Mustangs won 6-4.

For the first two weeks of his high school career, Stearns was strolling the halls of Sandburg, intent on being an Eagle.

"I wanted to go to St. Rita, but most of my friends were going to Sandburg," Stearns said. "But it just didn't feel right. I made the right decision by transferring to St. Rita."

It was a decision that played a direct role in St. Rita advancing to the state semifinals in Joliet – and Sandburg experiencing the agony of defeat.

Stearns, the No. 9 hitter in the Mustangs lineup, strolled to the plate in the sixth inning, the game tied 4-4, and a crowd of 3,132 fans on the edges of their seats.

"No, I wasn't nervous," the 5-foot-6 second baseman said. "It was a little bit harder to focus with the atmosphere the way it was."

Pinch-runner Kyle Jachim was on first base, and standing 60 feet, 6 inches away on the mound was Sandburg right-hander Lucas Fritsch, who happens to be Stearns' teammate on the Illinois Sparks summer travel team.

Fritsch unleashed a first-pitch fastball that Stearns smacked into the right-center-field gap. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, allowing Jachim to score and giving St. Rita a 5-4 lead it never relinquished.

St. Rita (34-6) advanced to the Final Four and is to take on O¹Fallon (31-9) in a Class 4A semifinal at 4 p.m. Friday.

"I was looking first-pitch fastball," Stearns said. "I don¹t know if it helped knowing Fritsch, and I'm not going to brag about it. But it was an awesome feeling."

St. Rita coach Mike Zunica calls Stearns his "David Eckstein," a reference to the scrappy, veteran San Diego Padres infielder who has a habit of coming through in the clutch.

"Stearns is an overachiever, and I'll take those guys all day long," Zunica said. "He's a very good hitter, and I was confident in that situation he would make solid contact and make something happen. He laced that ball."

As hard as Stearns hit the ball, it still didn't match the velocity of teammate Angelo Burrage's home run in the second inning, which caromed off the light pole in right field and cut the Eagles' lead to 3-1.

"That might have been the hardest ball I've ever seen hit," Zunica said.

For a Sandburg team that saw its 20-game winning streak snapped, it was a gut-wrenching defeat.

The Eagles (30-3) led 4-1 after 3 1/2 innings and had momentum. But Sandburg had stranded eight runners to that point, including leaving the bases loaded in the first inning, and runners at second and third in the third and fourth innings.

The Eagles' failure to land the big hit would come back to haunt them.

What compounded matters was Sandburg's inability to make contact. The Eagles struck out 15 times, including nine out of the last 10 outs recorded by St. Rita sophomore lefty Joey Filomeno.

"For me, he (Filomeno) hid the ball real good behind his head when he was about to release it," said Sandburg center fielder Tony Stramaglia, who tripled and scored two runs. "He had great velocity and a good curveball.

"We all thought we could have won state," said Stramaglia, who is to play football and baseball at Grand Valley State. "We played our hearts out. St. Rita is a great team."

In showering his team with praise, Sandburg coach Doug Sutor couldn¹t help but lament his team's missed scoring opportunities.

"Give me three hits during the first few innings and it's probably a 10-something game," Sutor said. "We had opportunities to blow the game open. We just didn't get the big hit when we needed it. But we won 30 games, and these kids were a pleasure to be around."

Pat Disabato can be reached at pdisabato@southtownstar.com or (708) 802-8837.