Westminster Christian rallies to stun St. Edward
A backyard brawl between Elgin private schools took place in someone else's backyard 370 miles to the south on Thursday.
Just five miles separate St. Edward and Westminster Christian on Elgin's west side, but the baseball teams from the two schools met on a diamond in Goreville, Ill. as part of each team's spring break trip.
Because of Wednesday's soaking rains in downstate Illinois, four games were played back-to-back at the Goreville High School field under two-hour time limits.
Because the slow-moving game was nearing its time limit, Westminster coach Jeff Moeller and St. Edward coach Gene Belmonte agreed the fifth inning would be the last. At the time, St. Edward was leading 8-3.
However, Westminster Christian, which returns the majority of the players from a team that reached the Class A Elite Eight last spring, rallied for 6 runs in the bottom of the fifth to pull out a dramatic 9-8 nonconference victory.
With two outs and the winning runs on second and third, Warriors senior Ryan Donahue stroked a single that scored Carter Ward and Cory Hodge to win the game for Westminster Christian.
"I think we have very tough team," said Warriors coach Jeff Moeller. "There aren't many guys in our lineup you can pitch around and today they came up with a lot of clutch hits, which was good to see."
Westminster later faced Fenton on Goreville's field and dropped a 13-7 decision to fall to 1-2 for the trip.
Ben Palmer, who homered in a game Wednesday, went 3-for-3 with a double and 2 RBI, and Carter Ward hit a home run in a losing cause.
Burlington Central rained out: The Rockets were leading Urbana 11-1 through 3½ innings before rains washed out the final game of Central's spring trip.
Prior to the inclement weather, starting pitcher Bryan Bell laced a 3-run home run in the first inning. Matt Maciaszek doubled, and Bill Rodriguez tripled and singled for the Rockets.
Girls soccer
St. Viator 8, South Elgin 0: The Storm couldn't handle the precision attack of the Lions in this nonconference meeting. Senior goalkeeper Jessica Hantak made 7 saves, and freshman keeper Danielle Wagner made 3 saves for South Elgin.
Oak Park-River Forest 2, Burlington Central 1: The Rockets got a second-half goal from Bri Conran, assisted by A.J. Wilks, but the Huskies scored 2 goals of their own in the second half to drop Central to 0-3-0 for the season. Kim DeRaedt made 11 saves for Burlington.