Baseball: Seidel swings away as Fremd stops Stevenson

The list just got updated. In a major way.

Two home runs had topped the list of personal highlights this season for Fremd outfielder Luke Seidel.

Then Thursday happened.

Seidel came up with the biggest hit of his career, a triple, when the 11th-seeded Vikings needed it most in regional semifinal action against No. 5 Stevenson at Mundelein.

"This is top of the list now," a beaming Seidel said.

With its back against the wall, Fremd was staring at a 1-run deficit in its last at-bat in the top of the seventh. There was already one out on the board, but two runners on base, when Seidel came to the plate.

He jumped on a pitch and belted a triple into the gap in left field. That scored 2 runs and gave Fremd a 5-4 lead over the Patriots that would hold up as the final score. Fremd starter Eric Bennes kept Stevenson off the board in the bottom of the seventh.

Fremd, which improves to 17-16, will face No. 16 Mundelein at 11 a.m. Saturday in the regional championship game. Stevenson closes its season with a 19-13 record.

"The two home runs this season were pretty big (hits), but they weren't in a situation like that, definitely not," Seidel said. "It was a great team win and the team was cheering me on really loud. (The ball) went in the gap and everything else just came together."

Everything came together, and stayed together, for Bennes, who is Fremd's ace. He let up 3 runs in the third inning but did a nice job of keeping Stevenson relatively quiet the rest of the way.

"He gets ahead of batters and he can go seven innings because he throws a lot of strikes," Fremd coach Chris Piggott said of Bennes, who finished with 9 strikeouts and is now 8-3 on the mound. "And we knew that Stevenson is a good team and they like to run and he does a good job of holding runners. We felt like, if we're going to go out, let's go out with our best on the mound.

"We play a tough schedule. We lost games like this early in the season and in the last couple weeks we're finding ways to win those games. So I think it helped us playing good teams early. These guys knew we could battle back and they competed."

Fremd scored 3 runs in the fourth inning, thanks in part to a double by Will McCabe, to match the 3 runs that Stevenson put up in the third inning.

The Patriots were fueled in the third by a home run into dead centerfield by Charlie Bourbon. Stevenson also got a run in the fifth inning when Charlie Ling brought in Henry Marchese with a bunt.

"That home run felt great. It was definitely a big run to get us started in the third. We had timely hitting in the third inning and we had some other guys stepping up too," said Bourbon, a Northwestern recruit who will get the chance to play with his older brother Willie in college. "But we just couldn't come out with it in the end.

"We were struggling to get an out in the seventh inning to get out of that. But that happens sometimes. Give props to (Fremd). They have a great team."

Fremd finished with just the 3 hits, and no one had more than 1 hit.

Stevenson tallied 7 hits, including 2 hits apiece from Henry Marchese and Evan Kiah. Both Marchese and Kiah had one double each.

"Give credit to Fremd," Stevenson coach Pat Block said. "They were very patient at the plate and took advantage of our mistakes. They are a very well-prepared team and things just didn't work out for us.

"We've been put in this situation (of needing to rally in the bottom of the seventh) many times and I didn't think the game was over by any means (heading into the bottom of the seventh). I thought with the guys we had up, we definitely had a chance and I expected a nice walk-off win. I had that feeling because our guys have worked so hard and deserved that. But it didn't work out and that's baseball."