Young Dundee-Crown Chargers eliminate Elgin
Dundee-Crown senior pitcher Brendon Schumacher doesn't see many contemporaries when he scans his defense from the mound.
His catcher, shortstop, second baseman and third baseman are sophomores, and his right fielder is a freshman. Only two seniors manned defensive positions behind Schumacher in the play-in game of the of the Class 4A Larkin regional played in Carpentersville on Memorial Day.
Though the young middle infielders each committed an error in the second inning, which led to an unearned run and a 2-0 deficit, they made up for it at the plate, backing Schumacher and No. 4 Dundee-Crown to a 5-3 victory over No. 5. Elgin.
"In the beginning we kicked the ball around, but we bounced back," D-C third baseman Nick Spagnola said. We're a bunch of young guys, but we know how to play baseball."
Dundee-Crown (7-23) advances to face top seed South Elgin (16-15) at Larkin Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
The Chargers rallied for 4 runs on 5 solid hits against Elgin senior Tom Roth in the bottom of the second inning.
Schumacher sparked the comeback with a single, and sophomore Kirk Hanselmann singled one out later. Junior Chris Sailor followed with a run-scoring single, sophomore Kyle Ryan singled to tie the game 2-2, Spagnola doubled to give the Chargers the lead and freshman Jake Romano's sacrifice fly made it 4-2.
"That one inning was really a killer for us," said Roth, an all-area athlete in football, basketball and baseball whose high school career concluded with the loss. "It really put us down. I was just leaving the ball up in the zone and they tagged it. They're a good hitting team. I'll give them credit."
D-C scored an insurance run in the fifth inning. Sophomore Steve Schwartz led off with a double and moved to third on Willy Larsen's groundout to first base. Following a walk to Schumacher, Senior Chris Leifel executed a perfect suicide squeeze bunt to score Schwartz for a 5-2 lead.
Elgin (4-28) got a run back in the sixth inning on a groundout by Javier Cárdenas. The Maroons brought the tying run to the plate in the seventh, when Dan Schmerber drew a one-out walk. However, Schumacher induced a groundball to Spagnola at third, and the sophomore fired to second base to start a game-ending 5-4-3 double play.
Schumacher (2-6) held Elgin to 5 hits, struck out four and walked four.
"We know a lot of people are underestimating us, but we're a good team," Schumacher said. "We're young. There's going to be a future in this, so we wanted to come out here, get a win and get some of them some experience in the postseason."
Cárdenas was a bright spot in the field for the Maroons. The sophomore second baseman finished the game with 7 assisted putouts without an error.
"We have a sophomore middle infield, so that's nice going forward," Elgin coach Dave Foerster said. "(Cardenas) had a heck of a year defensively."