Baseball: Coates, Elgin shut out Dundee-Crown
Elgin pitcher Kyle Coates said he didn't have his best stuff in Tuesday's Class 4A baseball playoff opener at Dundee-Crown.
The junior right-hander's breaking pitches were not diving with the usual sharpness and his fastball wasn't popping catcher Kejuan Harvey's mitt at typical volume.
Coates battled with what he had. And what the side-armer had was good enough to defeat a young Dundee-Crown lineup 2-0 in a pitchers' duel in Carpentersville.
"I'd be lying if I said I felt great," said Coates (4-4). "I was just trying to throw strikes. This is the type of day you really learn how to pitch, how to really work."
The Elgin hurler threw 104 pitches in a 6-hitter, walked 2 and struck out 3, including the final man he faced.
Coates dodged trouble often, stranding 11 baserunners. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fifth inning and stranded two in scoring position in the sixth. He induced lazy flyballs to outfielders both times.
"He knows what he has to work with on any given day and he just makes it tough for the opposing team to hit," Elgin coach David Foerster said. "We've been seeing that for a couple of years now."
The postseason victory was the first for Elgin (8-25) since May 25, 2015, when the Maroons knocked off Rockford Jefferson 10-5.
No. 10 Elgin advances to Wednesday's Cary-Grove regional semifinal against No. 2 McHenry (24-10) at 4 p.m.
"They're a great team but we've played great teams before and we know the type of ball we can play," Coates said. "We're ready to go out there and work."
Elgin defeated Dundee-Crown senior Erik Hedmark, a four-year varsity pitcher committed to Northern Illinois. The left-hander allowed 2 runs (1 earned) on 6 hits and 2 walks and struck out 10 in a 97-pitch performance spanning 6⅔ innings.
The Maroons jumped to a first-inning lead against D-C (7-27). Junior Tim Mitchell blooped a single to center field and later scored on Jack Sitter's two-out single off the left-field wall. The hard-hit ball was nearly gone.
"I thought it was for a second," said Sitter, who finished 2-for-3. "It was a fastball, lower half. It was a 3-1 count so I obviously loaded up, got out in front."
"I thought I was throwing good," Hedmark said. "They got the lucky breaks: a little jam shot to center field to get a runner on. Then I hang a 3-1 fastball. Things like that happened. We didn't get it done with the bats either."
Elgin added a third-inning run. JC Fortmann reached second base on a one-out throwing error and scored on Coates' basehit to shallow center field. Otherwise, Hedmark was tough in his final high school mound appearance.
"I knew going in that it was going to be my last game at home," Hedmark said. "It's been a long four years. I just wanted to go out there and leave it all out there on the field. No second thoughts afterward."
Hedmark was tough at the plate, too. The .400 hitter went 1-for-3 with a walk. His first-inning double to right-center field was his 17th of the season, breaking the D-C single-season record held by 2001 graduate Scott Komaromy.
"I thought it was vintage Hedmark," D-C coach Matthew Mueller said. "He came out and threw strikes for us, attacked hitters, fielded well at his position and broke the school record for doubles. He had a remarkable season."