Batavia takes aim at top seed Wheaton N.
Batavia's Tim Drish was fielding questions about his home run in Thursday's sectional semifinal win over Wheaton Warrenville South, when all of a sudden the senior left fielder stopped.
"I don't know, I can't even remember," Drish said of a blast he'd hit only 50 minutes earlier. "I get so mind-crazy with these wins. It's so nice to be playing."
Drish and his teammates certainly are enjoying extending their season into June. The No. 3 seed Bulldogs will try to keep their season alive at 10 a.m. today against No. 1 Wheaton North in the Class 4A Lake Park sectional semifinals.
It's certainly a heavyweight final between two teams that both have set their school record for wins. Batavia is 29-6; Wheaton North 28-5.
If that isn't enough for the Bulldogs, who have eight seniors in their lineup, all their starters except junior Tim Schofield graduated Friday night.
"Hopefully we make the right choices Friday night, just graduating, have a bonfire like we normally do," Drish said.
The Bulldogs will need to be at their best to beat a Wheaton North team that finished fourth in state last year, then won their first outright DuPage Valley Conference title this season since 1980.
Wheaton North started 20-0 and is 8-5 in its last 13 games. The Falcons suffered a couple key injuries to their pitching staff, but they still have their No. 2 Jack DeAno (7-1, 2.02 ERA) ready to go today. DeAno has 54 strikeouts in 52 innings but has walked 25 batters against a Batavia team with a lot of disciplined hitters.
The Bulldogs counter with Brian Krolikowski, who is 5-2 and coming off an 11-6 complete game win last Saturday against Willowbrook in the regional finals.
In his start before that, Krolikowski lost to Wheaton North in the regular season finale despite striking out 10.
Wheaton Warrenvills South coach Tim Brylka has seen both teams, losing to Wheaton North in DuPage Valley play and then to Batavia Thursday.
"Obviously Wheaton North strength is the pitching but they've had some injuries, and obviously Batavia has a pretty good kid in Krolikowski," Brylka said. "It will be a good game. Batavia can swing the bats and so can Wheaton North. They hit us hard twice. Should be an exciting one."
DeAno leads a potent Wheaton North offense that is hitting .329 as a team with a .410 on-base percentage. He's batting .429 with 8 home runs and 17 steals.
While Wheaton Warrenville South only had 11 team home runs, Wheaton North has 29. The Falcons also can run with 59 steals.
But Batavia is just as dangerous, starting with Schofield hitting .380 in the leadoff spot and then going through the middle of the order with Drish (9 home runs), Krolikowski (7) and Coffey (8).
Brylka said one thing that makes the Bulldogs so tough to pitch to is the tough outs continue in the order after Coffey in the 5-spot.
"The middle of the order, 3-4-5, obviously has a lot of power but you look at their 9 hitter, their catcher (Ryan Welter), he's not a typical nine hitter. They've got some power throughout. There's not many holes in that lineup."
The Bulldogs hope they got their errors out of the way with 3 against Wheaton Warrenville South Thursday, and can make it two wins in a row at a St. Charles North field they loved playing at.
"We better not do that (3 errors) again," Batavia coach Matt Holm said. "We're very excited to play them (Wheaton North) and what a great place to play."