Neuqua’s Blackburn silences Hornets

Updated: July 19, 2011 10:14PM

Following the lead of the college game, all high school baseball teams in the state of Illinois next spring will be required to start using BBCOR bats, which are aluminum but perform much like wood bats.

Wanting to shorten the adjustment period, Neuqua Valley used the new BBCOR bats all summer before going back to the BESR bats that players are used to.

Fourteen runs later against Plainfield East on Monday, the Wildcats pounded their way into the Glenbard South Regional in the 2011 Phil Lawler Summer Classic.

Five batters into Tuesday’s Glenbard South Regional quarterfinal against Hinsdale South, it appeared another rout might be on the way as Neuqua Valley scored three quick first-inning runs with four hits, capped by a RBI double from senior shortstop Tanner Giesel and a RBI single from junior catcher Dylan Goss.

The three-run first turning out to be the game’s only scoring was perfectly fine with the fourth-seeded Wildcats, who came away with a 3-0 shutout over the No. 5 Hornets behind another spectacular summer performance from senior right-hander Nick Blackburn.

“Definitely my slider,” said Blackburn, who fanned at least two batters in five of his seven innings, of what was working so well in keeping Hinsdale South off balance. “That pitch I had the most trust in. It’s just I knew I could throw it in any count.”

Continuing to show why Division I schools such as Virginia Tech, Michigan State and Alabama-Birmingham are taking notice, Blackburn made the quick three-run lead stand up by fanning 12 and allowed just three hits over the course of tossing a complete game on a very hot afternoon and extending his summer scoreless streak to 17 2/3 innings.

“I thought our team would step up, maybe score some more runs,” he said. “But with this team, we all have trust in each other.”

For the third straight summer, Neuqua Valley will meet Benet, which has pulled off three upsets in two days as the No. 17th seed in the regional to reach Wednesday’s first Glenbard South Regional semifinal at 2 p.m.  

Hinsdale South stranded eight runners on the day, none bigger than the opportunity it squandered in the sixth.

Placing runners on second and third with two outs thanks to a single, a walk and a wild pitch from Blackburn, Hinsdale South was a pitch away from suddenly making things very interesting.

Working Blackburn into a full count, Hornets right fielder Matt Reschike eventually succumbed to Blackburn by becoming his 11th strikeout and ending the threat.

“Watching him pitch (Tuesday) confirmed my original thought about him,” Neuqua Valley coach Robin Renner said. “He’s got some (former Neuqua Valley standout left-hander) Ian Krol in him. What I mean by that is he is one competitive son of a buck. He just competes. I don’t know how many times they had guys on base and he just finished, finished the inning.

“He did that three or four times (Tuesday) and I think that trait or quality in a player is as important or more important than ‘can you run, can you throw, can you hit?’ If you compete, you’re gonna be successful more often than not.” 

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