Baseball: South Elgin stymies Willowbrook in sectional final
South Elgin pitching stifled one of the area's top offenses at Boomers Stadium in Schaumburg on Saturday to win the 11th-year program's second sectional championship.
Willowbrook entered the Class 4A Lake Park sectional final batting .390 with five players sporting averages above .400, according to coach Vic Wisner, but Storm pitching limited the Warriors to 3 hits and 4 walks in a 4-1 victory.
No. 3 Willowbrook (26-9) managed 3 singles against senior right-hander Jack Stancl, who allowed an earned run on 3 hits and a walk and struck out 5 over 6 innings. Stancl improved to 7-2 and lowered his earned-run average to 1.43 in 51 innings.
"Jack gutted one out," South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. "He didn't have his best stuff and he got us 6 quality innings of what he had."
Fellow senior right-hander Dylan Wells pitched the seventh and struck out a pair in a 1-2-3 inning.
The duo outdueled Willowbrook sophomore Ryan Mintz (6-1). The right-hander was charged with 4 runs (1 earned) in 7 innings. He struck out 4 and walked none.
"This is the best feeling I've ever felt in my entire life," Wells said. "Just a sigh of relief because I know that I got it done."
No. 4 South Elgin (25-4) advances to Monday's 5 p.m. supersectional, also at Boomers Stadium, against New Trier (29-4). The Trevians defeated Fenwick 8-2 to win the Lane sectional.
Saturday's pitching performances extended a South Elgin staff postseason trend. Stancl, Wells, Nate Gomez and Adam Walker have combined to limit Elk Grove, Geneva, St. Charles North and Willowbrook to 3 runs on 16 hits.
Willowbrook's first five hitters - Ben Espinoza, Jonny Kelso, MJ Ranieri, Kyle Ferguson and Mike Dembowski - finished a combined 0-for-14 with a walk and 4 strikeouts. Alec Michaelsen enjoyed the only multihit game and Will Hines drove in the Warriors' only run with a second-inning single, tying the game 1-1 at the time.
"They silenced those guys at the top of the order," Wisner said. "So tip of my hat to (Stancl). He threw three pitches for strikes, he kept them off balance and he got in rhythm. We've got a pretty darned good lineup they shut down. I've got to tip my hat to them. They're a great program. I love everything they do."
The game wasn't free of controversy. Trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth, Willowbrook had runners at first and second with two outs and No. 8 hitter Marshall McConnell at the plate. Stancl's 3-2 curveball made contact with the arm of McConnell, who was initially awarded first base by the home-plate umpire, thus loading the bases.
Kating disputed the call, saying McConnell made no attempt to avoid what would have been strike three. The home-plate umpire conferred with the two field umpires, who had been situated at first and second base, respectively.
After a brief conference the three-man crew determined McConnell leaned into what otherwise would have been a strike. They reversed the original ruling and called him out to the dismay of Wisner, who launched an animated counterpoint between innings.
"The only person who is straight on who can tell if he's leaning is the home-plate ump," Wisner later said. "He got help and they thought they saw it so I guess I've got to live with it. I mean, it's just a tough time and a tough place for that to happen, that's for sure. I was just saying that if you don't have the perfect angle, you can't make (the call). But if they're dead set that he leaned, then he leaned. I mean, that's not the ballgame. That's a part of it, but there's other opportunities we didn't take advantage of."
Willowbrook stranded 7 runners and struggled through a costly fourth inning. The Storm snapped a 1-1 tie by capitalizing on 3 errors. Gomez scored on a throwing error by the catcher to give South Elgin a 2-1 lead. A passed ball on a squeeze attempt allowed Kevin Barry to score South Elgin's third run.
The Storm added a seventh-inning insurance run on sophomore Patrick Keaty's single to center field, which scored Cameron Kovanda.