Ecstasy, heartbreak all in one day
EAST PEORIA/JOLIET — Now that's a dateline that feels good to write on the final day of the high school sports season.
Not something I would have ever predicted, but certainly something to appreciate and cherish.
Two-hundred eighty-six miles driven.
Six times listening to “Centerfield.”
Zero speeding tickets!
Forty-eight hits.
Thirty-one runs.
Two rousing renditions of the national anthem.
Two state championship games.
One heartbreaking loss.
One state champion.
One controversial call nobody in St. Charles will soon forget.
All in all, a day Kaneland and St. Charles North High Schools should be quite proud of, the culmination of two tremendous accomplishments by special senior driven teams.
I've been working at the Daily Herald since 1995. I've been covering our Tri-Cities area since 2003. Since that time I've seen nine teams on my beats get to the state tournament. Until Saturday, all nine had lost — Batavia, Geneva, Aurora Christian and Marmion in football; West Aurora twice in boys basketball; St. Charles East and Batavia in baseball; and Geneva in girls basketball.
To state the obvious, it's much more fun seeing a team celebrate when the game ends. And I finally got to do that when Kaneland completed a remarkable end to the season with its 13th straight win, 11-3 over Oak Forest to claim the Class 3A baseball championship.
Unfortunately for St. Charles North, the North Stars couldn't quite make it two titles in one day when Moline outslugged them 9-8 Saturday night in East Peoria.
The dual state title games couldn't have come at a better time for me. On Sunday, we're hosting my mom's 70th birthday party. (Sshh, it's a surprise.)
There's the traditional cake and presents and all that good stuff. But after watching how the Knights do it, and seeing the North Stars after go crazy after their supersectional win Monday, I'm ready for a big mosh pit in the middle of the living room.
These teams know how to celebrate a championship just as well as they know how to win one.
“In a couple days it will sink in,” Kaneland senior Joe Camiliere said. “Maybe I'll come by this summer and see the trophy in the trophy case and it will be a little more real. But right now it's cloud nine.”
Instead of two state titles, our area got a dose of “The joy of victory and agony of defeat.” It took an uncharacteristic night for the North Stars to lose, committing 3 errors and ace Amanda Ciran allowing a career-high 9 runs.
Despite all that, the North Stars battled all the way back to within 9-8 when Annie Korth appeared to beat out — and replays showed she did — an infield single that would have scored the tying run in the sixth inning and brought Ciran to the plate with the bases loaded.
“After I passed the base I was, ‘Yes' and then I turned around and it was “what?” Korth said. “I was celebrating because I was safe. The behind-the-plate ump when I went out the next (seventh) inning (to catch) apologized. He was like, “Sorry about that, there was nothing I could do. I explained it to your coach.'”
As I said, a bad call that won't soon be forgotten.
“Angry, very angry, that's the emotion,” Taylor Russell said. “Just to think it would have been tied and the umps can determine a game like this makes me angry.”
Getting to the state title game and the murder's row of teams St. Charles North beat to get there will be something the all-senior lineup will surely appreciate in years to come — if they didn't already. As will the 111-30 record in their four years while setting a new standard for softball excellence.
“I'm proud of how we performed,” Ashley Seering said. “We came back and pushed through. There is no other emotion than being proud.”
“We set a very high standard,” Russell said. “I'm very proud of our program.”
The North Stars went down swinging. Russell, with as sweet of a swing as you'll see, capped her four years of crushing the ball for St. Charles North with a 3-run homer as part of a 4-for-4 game. Seering, hitting right behind her, also went 4-for-4, an amazing 8-for-8 night that still wasn't enough to beat Moline.
“You would think it would be enough,” Poulin said. “Really proud of Taylor and Ashley. they showed exactly what they were made of.”
I would not have predicted there would be more runs in the state championship softball game than baseball — and that it happened by the second inning of the softball game.
I also never would have guessed I'd get to cover two state championship games in one day. That's something that speaks volumes to all the community support, youth programs, travel teams, high school coaches and two amazing senior classes at both Kaneland and St. Charles North.
Or as Poulin said better than I can: “It's a credit to their parents, a credit to their travel coaches, a credit to the coaches they work with,” Poulin said. “They were mature enough and strong enough kids to listen to what I was teaching and really accept that we need to develop some chemistry and accept excel in roles and they did that. I think they learned a big lesson that when they are part of something bigger than yourself you have more success. And that individual glory is great but it doesn't compare at all to team achievement.”
jlemon@dailyherald.com