Saints’ Benjamin baffles Geneva

Updated: May 28, 2011 2:53PM

Consider St. Charles East’s baseball team armed and dangerous as it continues its quest for postseason spoils.

Kansas-bound ace Wes Benjamin was downright lethal Saturday as the Saints crossed one accomplishment off their list by winning the Geneva Class 4A Regional championship with a 6-0 victory against the host Vikings.

St. Charles East (27-10) scored in each of the first four innings and played error-free defense, but it was Benjamin who stole the show. The talented lefty needed only 72 pitches to cap a complete-game shutout as he limited Geneva (21-12) to two hits while striking out seven.

“Wes is phenomenal,” Geneva coach Matt Hahn said. “That’s the best pitcher we’ve seen all year. His reputation obviously precedes him, and he showed why he’s that good.”

The Saints secured their second straight regional title and the program’s 14th overall with the triumph. They advance to play either Glenbard West or York in the St. Charles North Sectional semifinals Thursday.

Benjamin (10-1) retired the final nine batters he faced, and his gem included only one walk. The Vikings had only three base runners on the day, and none advanced past first base.

“That was probably the lowest pitch count I’ve ever had, at least in a complete game,” Benjamin said. “I put the ball in spots well enough that they wanted to hit it. When they put it in play our guys were there to pick it up defensively, which helped a lot.”

The Saints managed only five hits themselves, but their patience and ability to play small ball paid off.

Geneva junior starter Matt Williams (4-2) walked four batters and hit another before being lifted with no outs in the bottom of the third. He trailed 3-0 at that point, but the deficit ballooned to 5-0 when St. Charles East sophomore Brian Sobieski hammered a two-run home run to right center off reliever Drew White two batters later.

Aside from the one round tripper, the Saints otherwise relied on their uncanny ability to move runners on the basepaths to score the rest of their runs. St. Charles East finished the game with three sacrifice bunts and one sacrifice fly. Jordan Hayes, Luke Rojas, Johnny Hondlik and Henri Desrosiers all had an RBI for the Saints.

“I told the guys I was proud of the quality at-bats,” St. Charles East coach Dave Haskins said. “We played great little ball for about five or six innings. We kind of dropped off at the end, but overall it was very solid.”

Mitch Endrivkaitis singled in the first inning and Kyle Bender reached on an infield single in the third for Geneva’s only two hits. White went the final four innings on the mound, allowing two runs on four hits while striking out two.

“It seemed like all year we always seemed to answer, but today we didn’t have that answer,” Hahn said. “I thought our effort was great all year. We don’t have any hardware to show for it, but our kids proved a lot this year.”

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