Baseball: Mt. Prospect, Fox Lake eager for Legion state tourney voyage
It has been a long time, and it will be a long trip, for American Legion baseball teams from Mt. Prospect and Fox Lake.
Both teams qualified last weekend for the state Legion tournament with wins in their respective divisions last weekend. They'll begin play Wednesday in downstate Jerseyville, about 50 miles North of St. Louis.
Mt. Prospect coach Jeff Daniels said no one was sure when the last time Post 552 went to the state tournament.
"They didn't have an idea for me," said Daniels, who is in his second year as head coach of Post 552. "All they could say it has been quite a while. But the Legionnaires are very excited, and so are the guys."
Mt. Prospect was able to advance by winning the 1st District Cook County tournament last Saturday in Arlington Heights. Post 552 rallied to beat Arlington 8-7. This was after beating Arlington 10-6 on Thursday by scoring 7 runs in the bottom of the eighth inning with two outs.
"We kind of had their number this year," said Daniels, whose team beat Arlington in 4 of the 5 games the two teams played this season. "We have a great group of guys who play hard."
Mt. Prospect (20-9) will meet Highland Post 439 in first round play of the double-elimination tournament at noon Wednesday.
Mt. Prospect has been led by pitchers William Sampson (Prospect) and Joe Sekulich (Conant). They have also been able to get great work from Mark Losacco, Sean Blatz, Jack Ankony, Joe Kowalek and Colin Broeker.
Offensively, Mt. Prospect has scored double digit runs in 5 of its last 7 games. They are led by Tyler Haffey (Hersey), Mason Sykes (Conant), who is hitting over .600 for the season, John Hendry (Notre Dane) and Marc Gonzalez (Hoffman Estates). Nick Sertolli, Adrian Perez, Kyle Sadowski, Tim Krause, Ben Lindell and Jackson Doughty have also made big contributions.
"We really tried to play all of our guys a lot during the regular season," Daniels said. "We wanted to give them a chance to earn a starting spot for the tournament. And we are playing our best baseball right now."
Also playing quite well right now is Fox Lake Post 703, which beat Barrington Post 158 4-3 last Saturday to win the 2nd District tournament. Fox Lake will meet Quincy Post 37 on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.
Host Jerseyville will play Danville in the final first round game at 7 p.m. Play continues through Saturday.
It has been a whirlwind summer season for sixth-year coach Brian Talbott and Fox Lake, which finished 15-2.
Fox Lake Post 703 boasts 18 players from the Grant High School team that won 22 games this year and made it all the way to a sectional title game.
Matt Mason, Bryan Libby, Nolan Unger, James Pendley, Ben Kusiak, Ricky Allen, Jake Mitchell, Shawn Riley, Brendan Dreschller, Zach Biegel, Logan Lewis, Sean Lane, Ray Guardado, Jack Gorden, Sam Fernandez, Brian Fisher, Garet Bauer and Andy Kaye all played for the Bulldogs this past spring, and now this summer.
"They have all been in the Grant program," Talbott said. "It is nice to have them play in the spring and summer. They are familiar with each other and how we like to play."
Talbott has also received leadership from his two college players in Nicholas Heidenthal and Andrew Stone.
"We have a lot of games that we have come from behind to win," Talbott said. "It has helped carry our postseason success. It has been a total team effort every game."