Palatine closes in on state title

Palatine and Belleville switched from a pitchers' duel to a slugfest midway through their American Legion baseball state tournament winner's bracket game Friday at Rec Park in Arlington Heights.

And the Blue Jays showed they can slug it out with the best of them in a wild roller-coaster ride in the final 41/2 innings with the defending state champions.

Three times they overcame deficits and used a 4-run outburst in the bottom of the eighth inning to pull out a 16-13 victory and put themselves in prime position for their first state championship since 1989.

"It takes a lot of pressure off us, but we still have to play,'' said Palatine second baseman Joey DePaolis, who celebrated his 19th birthday with a 2-run homer to left in the sixth to cut the deficit to 8-7 in a game where only 1 run was scored the first 4 innings. "We know we can beat any team."

Palatine (24-7) still doesn't know yet who it will get a shot at sometime early this afternoon at Rec Park. That's because a Friday already filled with craziness ended in bizarre fashion during the elimination game between Belleville (32-4) and Rock Island (28-5).

Belleville was leading 9-4 in the top of the sixth inning when Rock Island's earlier protest over the interpretation of an interference call was upheld.

As a result, the game reverted to the top of the fourth with Belleville leading 7-4. Since there was only 25 minutes before the 11 p.m. curfew at Rec Park, the game was suspended and will resume at 10 a.m., with the winner coming back about 30 minutes later to face Palatine.

Belleville or Rock Island would face the tough task of having to beat Palatine today and then Sunday - since Legion rules prohibit playing three games in a day - to win the title.

"It's nuts," Palatine leadoff man Nick Addison said after going 4-for-5 with 2 RBI. "It's crazy we've come this far."

Clint Terry, who threw a complete game to knock out Cook County champion Elk Grove 4-2 in Friday's first game, put Palatine ahead to stay at 14-13 with a 2-run triple to right-center off closer Mitch Matecki in a bizarre eighth inning.

"Coach (Jeff Ryder) came up to me and said, 'We need you to come up big here,'" Terry said. "Before the game he told me I was going to come up big. It was a first-pitch fastball up and I got it elevated."

Matt Johnsen started the inning with a walk and Matecki came in to pitch with designated hitter Kane Sweeney moving to third.

Ryan Shober bunted and Sweeney's throw to second hit base umpire Bill Orris in the head as Johnsen went to third. Orris was on the ground for a couple of minutes but was OK and stayed in the game.

"That changed the game completely," said Belleville catcher Tyler Burk. "We could have had one out with a man on first or maybe a double play."

Palatine added a pair of big two-out insurance runs with RBI singles from Addison and Zenon Kolakowski (4-for-6, 4 RBI).

"I didn't even fully feel stressed out there the entire game," Ryder said of his team's ability to come back. "Joey D's homer lifts the spirits of the team and Clint came up big with a nice gapper for us."

Johnsen went 2-for-4 and No. 7 hitter Eric Paulson was 3-for-5 with a big 2-run double in a 5-run seventh where Palatine took a 12-8 lead.

"There's no weak spot in our lineup," said DePaolis, the No. 8 hitter who has changed his stance to hit 4 homers this summer after not hitting any this spring at Fremd.

"One through nine we're great hitters,'' Terry said. "We feel we're always going to hit and you've always got to be ready to hit.''

It was almost tough to imagine Palatine leading only 1-0 going into the fifth behind a solid start by UIC-bound righty Mike Schoolcraft. Belleville scored 3 unearned runs in the fifth to touch off the back-and-forth battle.

Rob Beatty continued his hot tournament as he went 3-for-6 with a double and 3 RBI. Sweeney also had 3 hits and Belleville took a 13-12 lead on a two-out, 2-run single by Luke Matecki to cap a 5-run eighth.

"Quite a game," said Belleville coach Mike Harres. "We kept coming back and they kept coming back and neither team quit. I thought the first five or six innings were as good as we've played all year, but they just kept coming.''

And Palatine, which let two late leads slip away in the Cook County tourney, finally stopped the onslaught in the ninth as Jake Llanas didn't allow a hit in the ninth for the save.

Ryder feels good about his pitching depth with Brett Chidester, who threw an inning in relief Friday, starting what he hopes is the game which will send Palatine to the Great Lakes Regional in Appleton, Wis.

"Belleville is probably one of the best-hitting teams, like an Arlington team, that just won't go away," Ryder said. "But (assistant) Dave Shober was saying, this is a different Blue Jay team now."

In Palatine's first game of the day, Terry took a 3-hit shutout into the eighth inning and finished with 6 strikeouts. The lefty gave up 2 runs on 4 singles in the eighth but DePaolis and Shober turned a double play to end the threat with the tying run on first.

"My curveball was actually working better than my slider and it had some tight bite on it," said Terry, who is receiving interest from Illinois, Illinois State and Eastern Illinois. "That (double play) was huge. I had good defense all day so I wasn't worried."

Palatine went up 2-0 in the third when Addison led off with a double and scored on an error and Johnsen had a two-strike RBI double. Terry (2-for-4) had an RBI single in the fifth and Shober had an RBI single in the seventh.

Elk Grove (26-13), which went 0-2 in its first state tourney appearance, got an RBI single by Chris D'Angelo and a sacrifice fly by Colin Semler in the eighth. Dan Launhardt went 2-for-2.

Rock Island stayed alive in a wild 18-15 elimination-game win in the afternoon over Mattoon (35-4), which rallied from a 12-1 deficit to take a 15-14 lead into the ninth. Mattoon loaded the bases with one out in the ninth but Michael Fisher ended it with 2 strikeouts.