Stay Connected with YourSeason
Baserunning lifts Wave to regional final
Updated: May 19, 2011 8:46PM
After 29 games and four innings, St. Edward’s baseball team had no option left offensively Thursday but to gamble.
The third-seeded Green Wave started running the bases to force errors even when down, and it worked to generate just enough offense to support the standout pitching of junior left-hander Austin Davis for a 3-2 victory over second-seeded Northridge Prep in the semifinals of the Westminster Christian Class 2A Regional.
“When nothing is working and nothing is happening, you’ve got to start rolling the dice,” St. Edward coach Gene Belmonte said.
The Green Wave came up with a 3 in the fifth — not 7s — but it was enough to earn a championship matchup against top seed Westminster Christian, a team that beat St. Edward 5-1 earlier this season. The title game has been moved up from Saturday to 4:30 p.m. today.
“We have struggled so much offensively and if we had not put runners in motion and we had not stolen bases, we don’t score, plain and simple,” Belmonte said. “We have not hit well most of the season. We left a ton of men on base today (11).”
Davis (3-5) held Northridge (11-14) to two runs on five hits for six innings before giving way to Luke Duffy in the seventh. But all Davis had to show for the first four innings was a 2-0 deficit after allowing Liam Brannon’s double and Kyle Antene’s RBI single in the first, and escaping a jam with an unconventional double play in the fourth that allowed the second run to score.
So when leadoff batter Zach Brewster started the fifth with a walk, Belmonte had him steal second, which seemed logical enough. However, with a 2-0 deficit, stealing third seemed over the top. Brewster made it work. He also singled and stole two bases in the sixth.
“Let it all out right now,” Brewster said, describing the approach on the bases. “Talking about it before the game, we kind of had a lot of intensity so it was kind of fueling the running.
“And coach was giving the sign at the right point. We haven’t stolen a lot of bases, but today it worked for us.”
Reliever Mike Gigante then allowed Ryan DiCristofano’s RBI single to left and walked Duffy. Tighe Koehring put down a perfect sacrifice and the play for DiCristofano at third failed, loading the bases.
The tying run scored on Derek Porto’s fielder’s choice grounder up the middle that led to a force at second. Finally, Duffy scored the go-ahead and eventual winning run on a high pitch that popped out of Antene’s catcher’s mitt and rolled to the backstop for a passed ball.
Belmonte wasn’t done gambling. He went to Duffy for the seventh even after Davis yielded hits in only two of the six innings he pitched, striking out two and setting the side down in order four times.
“The first inning I was a little nervous because it’s like, ‘Woah, this game is important and I’m a junior and it’s kind of overwhelming,’ ” Davis said. “Once I found my rhythm, though, it was good.”
Duffy gave a good scare by allowing a leadoff double to John Sander, and then issued a two-out walk. But he ended the game by striking out Pete Kane.
“Duffy is a good closer,” Belmonte said. “I wanted to give him work for tomorrow, too, because obviously we’re bringing him back (for Westminster).
“We wanted to get him used to the mound and he’s a good change of pace from Davis — a soft-throwing lefty vs. the hard thrower. The thing we didn’t count on was him giving up the leadoff double and going 3-2 on every batter.”
Northridge had only six hits.
“I was pleased with our guys,” coach Patrick Hunt said. “We played, for the most part, a clean game.
“Generally we hit the ball well. Today we showed a few spurts of that but just didn’t score.”
Jake Koehring had three hits for the Green Wave (6-23), while Antene had two for Northridge.
“We’re looking to be the little engine that could,” Belmonte said. “Westminster is obviously a very good team. We’ll need to play like we did today against them.
“We were right there with them, down 2-1 after five, when we gave up a homer and lost to them last time.”
© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.
Cell Phone Alerts
Comments Click here to view or make a comment