Helmich, Grant topple Cary-Grove

A nasty collision between Grant’s Jared Helmich and Cary-Grove’s Matt DiCicco at first base in the top of the seventh inning looked much worse than it actually was. “I tried to avoid the guy,” Helmich said. “There was nothing I could do, I was going full speed I just couldn’t get away from him.”

Luckily, both players eventually got up, dusted themselves off and continued on. But it was Helmich who would ultimately forget the pain. How so? He’d pitch the bottom half of the inning with a 2-run lead and close the Trojans out for a 4-2 Class 4A McHenry regional championship win. It’s the Bulldogs’ first regional win since 2001.

“That regional feels a lot better now,” Helmich said with joy and relief.

No. 2 seed Grant (22-11) will take on Huntley regional champion Crystal Lake South in the McHenry sectional at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Top-seeded Cary-Grove (22-14), which was after its fourth straight regional title, ends its year on a somber note, after beginning 11-1 in the Fox Valley Conference.

“I think the expectations of the team was that we were going to be here,” Bulldogs coach Dave Behm said. “We definitely felt we had the talent. I think we were pretty comfortable being here. I felt we didn’t have much nerves and we played well today and Thursday.”

The Bulldogs will stay in McHenry thanks to sophomore catcher Simeon. His clutch double off the 300-foot sign in right in the top of the sixth that was inches away from a homer, proved to be a major catalyst in an inning where Grant would take a 3-2 lead on Jacob Adams’ sacrifice fly and a hit batsman.

“(Cary-Grove’s Matt Dunlap) got me on a couple of inside pitches, I couldn’t really do anything about that,” Lucas said. “I was down to two strikes and I knew he was going to give me a slow curveball inside or a fastball and it turned out he gave me a curveball and I just sat back and pretty much, whatever I learned from year 8 to now, I’ve put it all together with one swing.”

Grant jumped ahead to 1-0 lead in the first with Helmich’s RBI base hit up the middle. The Trojans tacked on a run in the second on Dylan McDonough’s sac fly and managed a run in the fifth on DiCicco’s groundout to take a 2-1 lead.

A key third run was taken off the board for Cary-Grove, when time was called as a ball got onto the field during Zach Marszal’s at-bat. Marszal lined the pitch opposite field to right down the line that would’ve scored Matt Byrne, a senior who was on Cary-Grove’s two previous regional championships. Instead, Marszal struck out and Dan Vilardo couldn’t keep the inning alive.

“The umpire called time, I didn’t hear him,” Trojans coach Don Sutherland said, who alluded to a play he had questioned in a previous inning. “I felt like this guy left early and I checked with the umpire and he said he didn’t. So there was a lot of little things that didn’t go our way but you have to hand it to Grant, they played better.”

It was emotional for some of the Trojan seniors, including Byrne who graduated just hours before the game.

“Graduation was fun and all that but I was looking forward to this game all day,” Byrne said. “We had to rush to the field, it was scramble for getting ready and it was a fun day and glad I was apart of it. That last at-bat I wanted to put in play, I got a nice liner out of it, but it ended there.”

Jake Trumpis, who struck out 4 and gave up 2 earned for the win. Dunlap gave up 3 earned runs on 2 strikeouts in 4 innings for the loss.

Jake Ring (2-for-4) doubled for Grant.