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Kaneland beats Marmion, wins first sectional
Updated: June 4, 2011 8:15PM
A bloop here, a ground ball with eyes there, a couple of missed pitches by Marmion and a fortunate hop late helped lead the Kaneland Knights to their first sectional title in program history with a 6-3 victory over the Cadets Saturday morning in Rochelle.
“This is huge — but we’ve got to keep it rolling,” Kaneland senior shortstop Kyle Davidson said. “No one’s ever been here from our school, so why not keep going?”
The Knights (23-10) will face Peoria Notre Dame Monday at the Class 3A Augustana College Supersectional at 5 p.m.
“It’s special,” Knights starter Bobby Thorson said. “Real special.”
In the first and fifth innings, Cadets starter Tyler Friel (3-4) missed his location on offerings to Thorson, allowing a run-scoring double and then an eventual game-winning two-run home run.
Marmion’s scouting report said to pound Thorson inside, but on both occasions Friel’s pitch sailed outside.
“They keep pitching me away,” said Thorson, who has hit seven of his eight home runs to either center or right field this season. “And I’ll hit it.”
Some fortunate ball placement helped Kaneland continually put runs on the board, beginning in the fourth when catcher Tyler Heinle poked a single just past the gloves of two Marmion infielders to score Drew French and make it 2-0.
Then, leading 5-3 in the sixth, a bloop single by Corey Landers landed on the left field chalk to score Brian Dixon for an insurance run.
Thorson (6-3) started for Kaneland — his third appearance in a week — and threw five solid innings of four-hit ball before telling coach Brian Aversa he had run out of gas after the fifth.
“With that communication we brought (Drew) Peters in and we had Kyle (Davidson) in reserve — we were going with our best there,” Aversa said. “When Bobby tells me he wants the ball I know he wants the ball. It’s not, ‘Well, my arm’s iffy but I want the ball anyway.’ It’s ‘I can do this.’ He was very honest today. He knows we were relying on him but we knows what we have as well. We’re very deep. That’s a luxury to have.”
Marmion had several opportunities to score more than just three runs off Thorson after tying the game 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth, but the Cadets stranded four. For the game, Marmion left three in scoring position.
“You’ve got give those kids credit — we came back and tied it and a lot of teams would get down at that point, but they stayed up, they came back, chipped away every inning,” Cadets catcher Kyle Kozak said. “We did a good job starting out but we just couldn’t keep up with them.”
Marmion (21-9) tied the game 3-3 in the fourth behind a steal of home by A.J. Friedman and a RBI single by Friel, and its best chance to tie the game late came in the sixth when Friedman and Friel reached with one out.
Chris Simon then pounded a Drew Peters pitch into the ground, shooting it right back over the lefty’s head.
Peters leapt, but the ball just passed over his glove — right into the waiting hands of Davidson, who stepped on second and fired to first for an inning-ending double play.
It is the third sectional championship loss in four years for the Cadets.
“It hurts to lose in this game,” Cadets coach Dave Rakow said. “We wanted to win it, the guys were in the game last year so they felt they had the experience and knew what they had to do to win it. Unfortunately it just wasn’t our day today. I don’t think we played a bad game, I think Kaneland outplayed us. It’s nothing to hang your head about.”
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