Dundee-Crown tops Huntley; Jacobs up next
The Dundee-Crown baseball team will face District 300 rival Jacobs for a third time on Wednesday.
Pitcher Danny Denz saw to that with Monday's 4-0 playoff win over Huntley in Carpentersville. The Memphis-bound left-hander limited the fifth-seeded Red Raiders to 1 hit and 4 walks in a Class 4A regional play-in game.
"I was hitting my spots well, I was keeping the ball low and my defense was making good plays for me," he said.
Denz (7-4) struck out 9 to increase his area-best total to 87. The shutout lowered his earned run average from 1.98 to 1.75 in 60 innings.
"Danny did a nice job of coming in and throwing strikes and stepping up when we needed him most," D-C coach Jon Anderson said.
No. 4 Dundee-Crown (20-12) advances to play No. 1 Jacobs (24-10) in a Jacobs regional semifinal on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. The teams split two regular-season meetings.
The stickiest situation Denz faced came in the fourth inning, when Huntley put runners at the corners via pitcher Jeff Heinrich's leadoff double, Jake Liebman's groundout and Noah Konies's walk.
Denz struck out No. 6 hitter Joe Rizzo for the second out after two failed safety squeeze bunt attempts. Denz then induced a fly out to right field to quash the uprising and preserve a 1-0 lead.
Dundee-Crown forged its slim lead in the second inning, which Jared Ludwig opened with a windblown double to center field. "Honestly, I thought it was a routine fly out but it ended up getting a little help from the wind and ended up hitting the fence," Ludwig said.
Riley Alvarado followed with a sacrifice bunt and Denz helped himself by pulling Heinrich's 1-2 pitch to right field for a 1-0 lead.
Huntley (9-27) dodged a bullet in the fifth to keep it a 1-run game. The Chargers loaded the bases on a single by Denz and walks to Erik Hedmark and Sam Ray, but Huntley reliever Jake Polo got Nick Musielewicz to fly out to center to end the inning.
Hedmark didn't let Huntley off the hook in the sixth. With two outs and the bases loaded, the freshman rolled a 2-1 offering from Ryan Mills though the second-base hole for a 2-run single. D-C added a fourth run on a wild pitch.
"One run is not a lot of insurance," Hedmark said. "I knew we needed a couple of runs there with two outs. I knew I had to get something done."
A 4-run lead was plenty for Denz. The junior retired 9 of the last 10 batters he faced in a 117-pitch gem.
Heinrich acquitted himself well in a losing cause. The Huntley sophomore held D-C to an earned run on 3 hits and 2 walks with 1 strikeout in 4⅔ innings.
"Awesome, awesome high school baseball game for the first five, six innings," Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski said. "It was intense, it was great, a true pitcher's duel. Denz was a little bit better than our guys, but it was a great, well-played ballgame. No errors on either side. It was clean. Both teams were prepared, both teams were ready. They had a couple of timely hits and when we had our opportunity we didn't get our opportunity done."