Naperville Central's Conlon still unbeaten
Naperville Central pitcher Shane Conlon was disappointed that he had to exit Wednesday's baseball game early because of leg cramps.
Conlon, however, already had done his job.
The Redhawks' senior lefty stayed unbeaten on the mound and came through at the plate to lead his team into the Class 4A Plainfield South sectional final with a 7-1 win over Naperville North at Joliet Junior College.
Top-seeded Naperville Central (33-4) - which took advantage of defensive miscues by the Huskies (30-8) to score 6 unearned runs - will face today's winner between Plainfield North and Lincoln-Way Central at 11 a.m. Saturday at Plainfield South.
Conlon (10-0) had a pair of RBI singles to give Naperville Central leads of 1-0 in the first inning and 2-1 in the fourth, then watched as an error led to a 4-run fifth by the Redhawks.
As soon as the Huskies opened the door, Naperville Central stormed through behind run-scoring singles by Ryan Walsh and Matt Soria. A wild pitch scored another run, as did a first-and-third double steal.
"That's how we've been all season," Conlon said of the lead suddenly building from 2-1 to 6-1. "When another team makes a mistake we kind of smell the blood and we go after it."
The long wait on the bench cost Conlon, however, who cramped up and couldn't pitch the top of the sixth after scattering 5 hits and striking out two. Dan Ludwig finished up with 2 scoreless innings of relief.
"The better team won today," said Huskies coach Carl Hunckler. "There were two innings that we didn't play very good baseball defensively. And as good a team as they are, they took advantage of it."
Mariano Long's solo home run in the fourth inning tied the game for the Huskies at 1-1. Naperville Central's Conor Philbin doubled to lead off the sixth inning and later scored on Marc Mantucca's single to make it 7-1.
"Today wasn't our day, and they played good," said Long, who also doubled to account for 2 of the Huskies' 6 hits. "They strung a few hits back to back to back and that's what wins games. Scattering hits throughout a ballgame, that's great. But you're just not going to put runs on the board."
After winning for the third time in four games against the Huskies, Naperville Central will compete for its second straight sectional title and third in the last five seasons.
"I thought we did a good job of pushing the envelope a little bit," said Redhawks coach Bill Seiple. "We've got some good athletes and we were able to score in a lot of different ways in this game."