A winning finale for Prospect
JOLIET — Prospect didn’t get the perfect ending on the final day of the high school baseball season.
But the Knights were happy to take the best finish possible on a historic Saturday afternoon for their program at Silver Cross Field.
Junior right-hander Jack Landwehr added to his single-season school victory total and Prospect capped its most successful season by finishing in third place in Class 4A with a 2-1 victory over Mt. Carmel.
“You couldn’t ask for a better way to end it,” said Prospect senior first baseman Brian Bauer, who went 2-for-3 with a tiebreaking RBI single in the bottom of the third inning. “We had a tough loss (9-1 to Providence in Friday’s semifinal) but we had to come back from that and to win the last game really does feel great.”
Especially since Prospect (27-9) was able to celebrate claiming the school’s first baseball trophy and matching the school record for victories set in 1996 and 1999.
Landwehr finished with 14 of them against only 2 losses as he threw a complete-game 8-hitter with 8 strikeouts and no walks. Mt. Carmel (34-9) managed only 2 hits off Landwehr after a two-out RBI double by Sam Kint in the third.
“It just starts with Jack on the mound,” said 15th-year Prospect coach and 1985 graduate Ross Giusti. “He sets the tone for our entire team and he’s done it all year. He gives us the mindset of playing confident baseball behind him.”
Landwehr, who broke Eric Porter’s 24-year old record of 11 wins in the sectional semifinals, threw 68 of his 100 pitches for strikes. He didn’t go to a three-ball count on a hitter and hit 88 mph on the stadium radar gun in the seventh inning.
He also had a consistent variance of around 15 mph from his fastball to his off-speed pitches. He used strikeouts to leave a runner at third in the fifth and at second in the sixth.
“I felt my stuff was working today,” Landwehr said. “I was mixing it up and hitting my spots. That was the key because they hit the ball hard.”
Mt. Carmel leadoff man Chris Sujka (3-for-4) started the game with a triple that right fielder Kevin Miller lost in the sun. But Miller came right back on Jerry Houston’s flyball and nailed Sujka with a perfect one-hop throw to Kurt Donner.
A one-out single by Matt Molini in the first set up Landwehr’s line-drive RBI single off the glove of a leaping Houston at shortstop. Molini walked, stole second and scored on Bauer’s single in the third.
Landwehr made sure it held up as he finished his fantastic season with 114 strikeouts and only 11 walks.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Landwehr, who is 19-2 for his varsity career. “Like coach said, not too many teams in the playoffs get a chance to redeem themselves. To get a chance to go out like that and have that opportunity is awesome.”
One that was completed after Sujka’s two-out single in the seventh. Bauer caught the final out on Houston’s grounder to third baseman Brad Gerdes.
“It’s a fantastic way to end our season,” Bauer said.