Double the hardware for Wave Coleman, St. Edward stymie Northridge Prep
The St. Edward baseball program reaped the benefit of its long-term rebuilding project Saturday by winning its first regional title in the sport since 2005.
Senior starting pitcher Riley Coleman held Northridge Prep, the team that knocked Driscoll out of the playoffs with a 15-run attack on Wednesday, to 1 run on 4 hits to lift St. Edward to a 5-1 victory and the Class 2A Driscoll regional championship. It is the fifth regional baseball title in school history.
The Green Wave advances to the Driscoll sectional to face Chicago Latin on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.
Coleman struck out 10, including the last batter of the game.
"I was throwing mainly fastballs," said the right-hander, who raised his record to 8-1 this season. "They weren't really keeping up with it. My out pitch was pretty much a curve, but the last couple of innings my arm was feeling real good so I was throwing more fastballs."
The Green Wave won Class A regional titles in 2003, 2004 and 2005, but longtime assistant coach Gene Belmonte inherited a thin roster when he took over as St. Edward head coach in 2006. His lineup that year was populated mainly by freshmen and a few sophomores and finished 2-23. Belmonte said that season, "The best thing about freshmen and sophomores is they become juniors and seniors."
The team finished 5-13 in 2007. Last season the maturing lineup finished 8-13 and lost a Class A regional title game to Lisle.
With five seniors and five juniors in the lineup against Northridge Prep (including a designated hitter), the fully ripened Green Wave (17-12) secured its long sought-after regional plaque.
"It has been a long, uphill struggle, but we're here," Belmonte said. "We're where we thought we would be. We've paid our dues, that's the best way to look at it I think. The hard work pays off and, eventually, you get there."
The Wave scored twice in the bottom of the first inning, courtesy of an errant pickoff throw and a basehit by junior Jordan Torres. Northridge (20-10) cut the deficit to 2-1 in the third inning on a close play at the plate following a basehit, but the Wave got the run back in the fourth on junior T.J. Madzy's RBI single.
St. Edward gave Coleman some wiggle room with a 2-run sixth. Following a one-out walk to Jon Godfrey and a double to the left-field wall by Madzy, senior Anthony Bauer upped the lead to 4-1 with a sacrifice fly.
"Everybody was taking big hacks at the curveball," Bauer said. "I just wanted to stay back and rip it, get it in the air."
The baseball plaque represents the sixth regional title for the St. Edward athletic program during the 2008-09 school year. The Wave also won regional titles in girls volleyball, girls and boys basketball and girls soccer.
The St. Edward softball team won its regional title a half-hour earlier Saturday, also at Driscoll, then cheered the baseball team on in the final inning. The two teams posed for photos together with their regional plaques after the game.
"We just wanted to be a part of it because St. Ed's has really been on the uprise lately," Madzy said. "We've been bringing a lot of regional championships back, and we wanted to do that, too."