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Baseball: Neuqua Valley looks sharp in postseason prep

You'll pardon Neuqua Valley's baseball team for not going overboard in its celebration of another DuPage Valley Conference championship.

With the race pretty much over for some time, the Wildcats gradually have been turning their eyes to the postseason.

After clinching the title earlier in the week, Neuqua Valley continued its DVC dominance with Saturday's 11-1 victory at Wheaton North.

The Wildcats (28-1-1) improved to 19-1 in the league, breaking open a 3-run game with 7 runs in the top of the seventh. Noah Herdman's grand slam - his fifth home run of the season - keyed the offensive outburst for the top seed in the Class 4A Oswego sectional.

"We've been looking forward to the playoffs for a long time," said Wildcats outfielder Eric Nelson, who had 3 hits and 2 RBI. "After our winning streak was stopped we knew we had a huge lead in conference, so we were looking forward to just getting ready for the playoffs and making sure we were increasing our potential."

Neuqua Valley flirted with big innings earlier in the game, but Wheaton North (13-15, 11-10) starter Jackson Gray, who pitched 5 innings, minimized the damage. The Wildcats scored lone runs in the second through fifth inning, which gave winning pitcher Mason LeBreck room to work in his 5 innings.

Wheaton North pulled within 3-1 with an unearned run in the fourth inning on D.J. Hagen's run-scoring fielder's choice, the first run allowed by the Wildcats in three games. Ricky Castro picked up the save by striking out four in 2 innings of relief.

"I was proud of the way Jackson battled, and we made some plays behind him," said Falcons coach Dan Schoessling. "It just got away from us in the seventh inning."

Nelson, Trevor Tesmond, Jack Rigoni and James Gargano drove in runs for Neuqua Valley leading up to the seventh inning. Nelson's RBI single, Tim Schneider's sacrifice fly and Ryan Wheeler's run-scoring single led up to Herdman's grand slam.

"Our guys just continued to have competitive at-bats," said Wildcats coach Robin Renner. "We continued to play defense and we pitched well. Hopefully we can keep it going into the tournament."

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