Dundee-Crown's bats hot in regional win over Elgin

The Dundee-Crown baseball team lost 22 games during the regular season, but a lack of hitting was rarely the reason.

The fourth-seeded Chargers entered the Class 4A regional play-in game they hosted against No. 5 Elgin Monday batting .317 as a team, and five starters boasted averages of .346 or better.

Unfortunately for the Maroons, D-C recently added another big bat in sophomore call-up Tyler Gross, who swung the biggest stick of all in a 10-4 victory.

With D-C leading 1-0 in the second inning, Gross, playing his fifth varsity game, ripped his second home run in three days, a 2-run shot off Elgin starter Alex Doty (3-6). The long drive cleared the left-field fence and staked the Chargers (13-22-1) to a 3-0 lead.

"(Doty) threw a fastball pretty low, and I just love low pitches. Whenever I see one I smash it," said Gross, who went 3-for-3 with 3 RBI and scored twice.

Gross now has as many home runs as Elgin (5-29) hit as a team all season. The Maroons got their second home run of the season in the fifth inning, when senior Chris Riggio lined one to left. Riggio, playing his final game, said it was the first home run he had ever hit at any level.

However, his home run only cut D-C's lead to 7-1. The Chargers had scored 3 runs in the fourth inning to go up 7-0 on the strength of a 2-run home run by sophomore Jake Romano and a solo shot from junior shortstop Steve Schwartz.

D-C added another run in the fifth on a single by Gross and scored twice in the sixth, keyed by pinch hitter Ryan West's RBI single.

Elgin (5-29) scored 3 runs in the seventh against D-C starter Zach Vodicka (5-5), who entered the final inning having thrown only 74 pitches. But he was lifted after walking back-to-back hitters, the second of which forced in a run.

Elgin managed 9 hits but stranded 6 runners and made 3 errors, familiar problems for the Maroons.

"You can't just flip a switch and say, 'OK, now it's regional time and we're going to all of the sudden start to play better,'" Elgin coach David Foerster said. "A lot of the stuff you saw today is the same stuff that's been bugging us all year."

The Chargers advance to face No. 1 South Elgin (18-13) in Wednesday's regional semifinal. D-C beat the Storm in a regional semi last season when South Elgin was also the top seed.

"No one expects us to do much. We have nothing to lose," Vodicka said of the rematch. "They're the ones who are the best, so they have everything to lose."