Carmel earns share of baseball title

Mom was right.

It IS nice to share.

Now sure, the Carmel Catholic baseball team would have loved to have won the East Suburban Catholic Conference championship outright.

But no one was complaining Saturday about having to share it with Joliet Catholic. Not after the circumstances that Carmel overcame just to do that.

The Corsairs entered their must-have doubleheader against visiting Marist with a 13-3 league record. First-place Joliet Catholic, which put Carmel in a hole at the very beginning of the season by sweeping the teams' doubleheader, had already closed out its league schedule with a 15-3 record.

That meant that Carmel needed to beat Marist twice just to tie Joliet Catholic for the ESCC championship.

Clearly, the Corsairs understood the sense of urgency.

They decisively swept Marist 5-1, 16-5 to close out their East Suburban Catholic Conference record at 15-3 and win their first league title in four years.

"I think we have the toughest conference in the state for baseball," said Carmel senior Bobby Lyne, who pitched the first game and went the distance (6 strikeouts) to get the win. "We all wanted the conference championship, even if it was a co-championship."

A co-championship, after all, is better than second place. And if any team knows about being a bridesmaid, it's Carmel. At least in recent years.

From 2002 to 2004, the Corsairs won three straight conference championships. But over the last three seasons, they've finished in second place each season.

"Our first goal of every season is to win conference and I had never done it," said Carmel four-year senior starter Jordan Sivertsen, whose 2-run homer in the first inning of the first game set the tone for the day. "We finally got it."

Earlier this season, the Corsairs (27-5 overall) also got head coach Chuck Gandolfi the 500th win of his 20-year tenure.

"It's been a very good year," Gandolfi said with a smile and a nod after the second victory over Marist. The conference championship was the seventh of his career. "All the credit goes to our kids for hanging in there after (the Joliet Catholic doubleheader loss). That's tough to do.

"Last year, we also lost our first (ESCC) doubleheader (to Marist), and then we wound up finishing in second place. This year, when we lost that first doubleheader (to Joliet Catholic), the thought was, 'Is it happening again?' But the kids didn't let that get them down and they kept it together the rest of the season."

Carmel's only other league loss this season was to Benet. Joliet Catholic lost league games to Benet, Notre Dame and Marist.

Marist was hoping to play spoiler and tag Carmel with a loss, too.

But the RedHawks were down 4-0 by the end of the first inning of the first game and were down 5-1 through three innings of the second game.

"We wanted to come out here and maybe spoil their party and we didn't even come close," said Marist coach Joel Jonas, whose team moves to 12-19 overall and finishes 8-10 in ESCC play. "If you're not going to put out an effort on the field, (the Corsairs) are going to do whatever they want and they basically did.

"They're a good, good team. But I would have at least liked to have seen us battle."

Marist scored its only run of the first game in the seventh inning, long after Carmel's first-inning binge that included Sivertsen's homer, an RBI triple by Lyne and a double by Donald Stopka.

"I was just trying to get on (base) and hit one in the gap and I got underneath it and hit it out," Sivertsen said of his home run. "It was good to get the lead right away. We needed to set the tone."

The Corsairs didn't quite set the tone they wanted in the second game. They got off to a shaky start with an early error.

Steve Mazurski reached on an error to lead off Marist's first inning, and eventually scored on a single by Dave Nowaczyk.

But the RedHawks' good mood was short-lived.

Carmel exploded for 5 runs in the third inning, thanks in large part to a triple by Scott Bierman and doubles by Lyne and Joey Pudlo.

After a 2-run fifth inning, the Corsairs went at it again, scoring 9 runs in the sixth inning off 6 hits. They got a triple from Joe Burg and a double from Pudlo as they batted through the order.

"I think we step up to pressure and to big games," Sivertsen said. "Even though we lost to Joliet Catholic, we were in both games. When we play good teams, we step up.

"With (Gandolfi's 500th win and the league title), this has been a memorable year. We hope to make it even more memorable (in the postseason)."