Vernon Hills wraps up NSC Prairie

Vernon Hills' baseball team had one of those good news, bad news days Saturday.

The good news was early in the morning when the Cougars traveled to Wauconda to complete a suspended game and won 7-5 in eight innings to clinch the North Suburban Conference Prairie Division.

Vernon Hills then drove back home to play Oak Forest, which won the "Czarnecki vs. Czanecki" battle 6-0 behind pitcher Brett Powers, who had a no-hitter for six innings. Zack Schwartz broke it up with a single in the seventh.

Oak Forest, which won the South Suburban Blue, improved to 23-4.

Vernon Hills (16-8) finished 11-1 in the division and will defend its NSC championship Thursday when it hosts either Mundelein or Lake Zurich.

"It's been a lot of fun with these guys," said senior Nick Mazza, who was the winning pitcher in the morning game. "Going into this season, we had to face a lot of adversity. We lost our starting catcher Kip Steingart and our closer Ricky Barranco (due to graduation).

"We had a lot of key guys step up as juniors and take a lot of roles that some seniors had last year."

Vernon Hills' game against Wauconda was suspended due to darkness in the eighth inning last Wednesday with the Cougars batting and leading 6-4. When the game resumed Saturday morning, Mark Argianas drilled a double off the wall. He later scored on a throwing error.

Then for the second straight day, Zack Schwartz finished up on the mound, this time recording the save.

P.J. Marsek and Ryan Jordan led the Cougars offense with 3 hits each.

"I'm really proud of the way that we've come through the last couple of weeks," Vernon Hills coach Jay Czarnecki said. "We had so many division games in a row and we kept on having to refocus and come to the park. We did it one more time this morning."

In the Cougars' second game, Czarnecki matched up with his older brother Ron, who coaches Oak Forest.

It was the third year in a row that Oak Forest and Vernon Hills met on the Saturday before Mother's Day.

"The last three years, it's been a very good Mother's Day," Ron Czarnecki said with a grin, "because the good guys have won."