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Baseball: Plainfield South stops Naperville Central's summer surge

Plainfield South finally ended Naperville Central's late-season summer league baseball rush.

In Wednesday's semifinals of the 41st Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Phil Lawler Summer Classic at Boomers Stadium in Schaumburg, Plainfield South won 6-3.

Countering a 3-2 deficit, in the bottom of the fourth inning Plainfield South (16-3) scored 4 runs on 2 hits and held on behind pitcher Jordan Mikel. The Cougars advanced to the title game at 7 p.m. Thursday against Brother Rice, a 3-0 winner against Huntley in the other semifinal.

Naperville Central finished at 14-12.

"The last two weeks have been great," said Naperville Central coach Mike Stock, who played on the Redhawks' sole summer league champion in 1989. Naperville North claimed the last Classic title by a DuPage County team, in 1996.

"We've picked up the groundball, we've pitched and we've had timely hitting," Stock said. "We've run ourselves into some good innings - we've run ourselves into a couple bad innings at times but we've been able to overcome it. And today, it just wasn't a very large margin of error and in my mind a 2-run inning became a 4-run inning, and that's what got us. Again, to (Plainfield South's) credit."

The Cougars led 2-0 on Nick Enloe's 2-out, 2-run triple in the bottom of the third. In the top of the fourth Naperville Central answered with doubles from shortstop Connor Gurnik and catcher Jack Hughes and singles by first baseman Aaron Szczepanski and third baseman Gabe Soria to go up 3-2.

Plainfield South responded by sending 10 runners to the plate though the only hard-hit balls were Trey Stewart's leadoff single and Mikel's 2-run double into right-center.

"That's baseball for you," said Gurnik, who twice one-hopped outfield walls for doubles and tallied 8 total bases. "Come right back after they score, that's what you want to do, is jump on them again. But yeah, I really liked how we played today."

The Redhawks got two runners on base in each of the sixth and seventh innings but Mikel escaped each time, including a bang-bang play to retire Gurnik for the final out. Mikel allowed 1 hit in 4 innings of relief.

"You're beating a program that has history upon history," said Plainfield South coach Phil Bodine. "I mean, I took lessons from (late Redhawks pitching coach) Phil Lawler when I was at UIC and (retired head coach) Bill Seiple's a great friend and mentor."

One of their staples? A positive mental attitude Stock has seemingly maintained.

"I think it just gives us a good core," Szczepanski said, "stuff to work off of to help us move forward and push each other even further. And it helps show the younger kids how that being, like, a group and being together is important and it helps keep you going as a team."

  Naperville Central left fielder Tommy Carlsen catchers a flyball during the high school summer league state baseball tournament semifinal against Plainfield South at Boomers Stadium in Schaumburg on Wednesday. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
  Naperville Central second baseman Ben Rozeboom fields a groundball during the high school summer league baseball state tournament semifinal against Plainfield South at Boomers Stadium in Schaumburg on Wednesday. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
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