Baseball: Aurora Christian crowned Class 1A champ

PEORIA - Everything went just the way the Aurora Christian baseball team pictured it throughout the 2018 Class 1A state tournament.

The Eagles had ace Jake Kuntzendorf pitching and after the sophomore closed the 5-1 championship victory over Valmeyer with his seventh strikeout he avoided the typical celebratory dogpile.

"I threw my glove in the air I was so excited, but I had it planned in my head," Kuntzendorf said. "I didn't want to (be on the bottom). I ran away."

That was the only thing Kuntzendorf ran away from on Saturday morning, especially in the final two innings as his pitch count edged closer to the 115-pitch maximum. He finished with 114, 76 of which were for strikes.

"I was nervous about the pitch count, it was getting up there," Aurora Christian coach Andy Zorger said. "I told him after the fifth, if you're going to finish the game go right at them because otherwise we'll have to bring you out.

"It's unreal. Baseball is one game and you never know what's going to happen. Everything has to fall into place and fortunately for us it did, with the way we used Jake through the tournament to get big leads and get him out (of games at 60 pitches) and to have him ready for today."

Having Kuntzendorf pitching gave his teammates confidence before the game even started.

"We knew when we had Jake on the mound and all we needed was a couple of runs," center fielder M.J. Stavola said. "We went up there swinging the bat."

Aurora Christian (33-2) picked up a run in the second and tacked on 3 more in the third behind 3 doubles.

The top three in the Eagles' lineup - Eric Hernandez, Stavola and Sam Tickel - went a combined with 6-for-12 with 2 RBI and 3 runs scored.

"No disrespect to (Valmeyer) but our guys are hitters and they get up there ready to hit," Zorger said. "That second and third inning was characteristic of us all year."

Valmeyer picked up an unearned run in the sixth to spoil the shutout, but Kuntzendorf worked out of his toughest spot in the fourth after walking the first two batters on nine pitches. Kuntzendorf induced a pair of fly outs to right sandwiched around a tapper back to the mound to escape the jam

In the end, Aurora Christian earned its first state baseball championship in program history.

"The bond this group has is special," Zorger said. "It's not something that normally happens with a group of high school boys."

Said Tickel: "It's just awesome. I think the reason we won it this year was because of the chemistry. We might not have had the most talented this team out of all the years, but we were really close this year."