St. Francis overwhelms Aurora Central Catholic
It was as if St. Francis' baseball team applied innumerable paper cuts to Aurora Central Catholic on Monday afternoon.
Without a single extra-base hit, the Spartans scored in every conceivable fashion in the teams' Class 3A regional final in Wheaton.
Foster Heise had a bases-loaded single to the right-center gap to score courtesy runner Anthony Bucaro and Jake Radel and terminate the contest in the bottom of the sixth inning.
With its 11-1 victory, the first postseason championship for St. Francis since advancing to the state title game two years ago, the top-seeded Spartans advance to face Rock Falls, which also invoked the slaughter rule in Freeport, on Thursday at Sycamore.
Aurora Central had its season come to a close at 25-10.
"I was just looking to get a run in," said Heise, who also had a 2-run single in the Spartans' 4-run fifth to finish with 5 RBI on the day.
The Spartans (23-9) scored in all six of their at-bats.
When the game was still in the balance, St. Francis' Brett Whelton and Tim Lilly had two-out, run-scoring singles in the second and third to give the Spartans a lead never to be surrendered.
"When we had two outs, we did a good job of that - staying calm and focused," Heise said. "The whole year we have been harping on picking someone up after a strikeout or whatever."
The Spartans were also thieves on the base paths.
Six-for-7 on the day in stolen base attempts, Timothy Sullivan and Nick Dama each swiped home to add to the Spartans' growing cushion.
Jason Sullivan, meanwhile, mowed through the ACC lineup in the middle of the game.
The senior, who has been recruited by Central Michigan as a shortstop, improved to 9-1 on the season with his complete-game effort.
Sullivan scattered 4 hits, and the only run he allowed came in the second when the Chargers tied the game at 1-1.
But the Spartans would score 10 unanswered runs after John Belskis was credited with an RBI after being plunked with the bases loaded.
St. Francis coach Nick Hall had surprisingly drawn in the Spartans' infield during the Chargers' second at-bat, but Sullivan escaped further damage.
"It was a gamble, but I trust my coach," said Sullivan, a Wayne resident. "He has experience. "When my teammates hit the ball and score runs, it makes my job much easier - and less stressful."
"It looked like it was going to be a low-scoring game at that point," ACC coach Sean Bieterman said. "The story of the day was how well (St. Francis) played. They outplayed us today."