Glenbard East enjoys another visit to W. Chicago
Glenbard East's baseball team may want to start playing all its postseason games at West Chicago.
For the second straight year the Rams knocked out their DuPage Valley Conference rivals at home in the Class 4A regional quarterfinals.
A balanced offense and the crafty left arm of Andrew Edwards helped visiting Glenbard East top West Chicago 6-3 on Monday in the opening round of the Geneva regional.
The Rams (11-20), seeded 20th in the St. Charles North sectional, advance to Wednesday's semifinals to play the regional host, No. 4 Geneva.
"I told the guys it was like déjà vu all over again," said Glenbard East coach Nick Scipione. "We were ready for them today. The kids made some good plays out there and backed up Andrew Edwards. It was a good game for us."
Glenbard East, which lost two out of three regular-season games against No. 13 West Chicago (14-20), scored its first run on Mark Krueger's third-inning single.
The Rams burst to a 5-0 lead, scoring twice in the fourth and fifth innings. Kevin McGarry's sacrifice fly and Jeremy Juhl's RBI single led to Nick Hogan's 2-run single in the fifth.
That was plenty of support for Edwards (3-6), who struck out seven and allowed 6 hits and 2 earned runs in 62/3 innings. With the bases loaded and the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the seventh, reliever Nick Chesky notched the final out to pick up his second save.
"We knew we had to play a good game and we had to hit," said Edwards, who last month lost the opener of the three-game series against the Wildcats. "The second time you pitch against them, you know the hitters but the hitters know you. It definitely makes it more difficult."
West Chicago rallied with 2 runs in the bottom of the fifth, scoring on an error and an RBI groundout by Al Robbins, who had 3 hits and 2 RBI.
After Glenbard East added a seventh-inning run, Robbins singled home a run in the bottom of the frame to make it 6-3. When the third walk of the inning loaded the bases, Chesky came on in relief.
"You've got to give them credit, they're playing better baseball than we are right now," said West Chicago coach Dan McCarthy. "It seemed like we couldn't put anything together in the last third of the season, and that's the frustrating part."
- Kevin Schmit
Waubonsie Valley 7, East Aurora 0: Winning pitcher Kris Singh (5-4) homered and fired a 2-hitter for the Warriors (19-14) in the Class 4A Plainfield South regional quarterfinals. Sam Carius went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI while Kevin Kirchner and Jeff Brown each had 2 hits. Eleventh-seeded Waubonsie Valley advances to Thursday's regional semifinals to face No. 6 Downers Grove South.
Wheaton North 6, Batavia 5: In a final regular-season tuneup, the Falcons (25-5) scored 4 runs in the top of the sixth inning to rally for the nonconference road win. Jack DeAno and Wade Cervenka, who drove in 2 runs, each had a pair of hits. Nick Norder picked up his first win of the season in relief.