St. Charles East delivers knockout punch

Two weeks ago St. Charles East's already immaculate baseball field added a brand new scoreboard behind the left-field fence.

Never could the Saints have imagined that scoreboard looking as good as it did Wednesday during and after the Class 4A St. Charles East sectional semifinals.

Ryan O'Dell paced a 16-attack going 4-for-4, iron man Wes Benjamin won his third postseason game in the last 7 days and the Saints scored in all but the final inning of a surprising 12-3 win over No. 1 seed St. Charles North.

Surprising not that the Saints won; they went 1-2 against the North Stars during a hard-fought series this season. Surprising was the way they did it, coming within a strike of sending 34-5 St. Charles North home by the 10-run rule.

"Normally I expect these games to be close ones," said Benjamin, who worked the first 5 innings to improve to 13-2, one win away from Jim Caine's school record.

"They are always a good hitting team. I looked forward to getting another chance and we came out on top this time. I got a little tired as it went on but overall great job by everyone."

Fifth-seed St. Charles East (27-11) will play the winner of Thursday's semifinal between No. 2 Wheaton North (27-9) and No. 6 Lake Park (21-16) for the sectional championship at 11 a.m. Saturday.

One of Benjamin's two losses this year came to St. Charles North, 3-2. His offense gave him much more support this time around.

The Saints started with 2 runs in the first inning and scored in every inning except the seventh. O'Dell laced a 3-1 pitch from Ryan Hudspth (7-1) for an RBI single to start the scoring. Luke Rojas added an RBI groundout to plate Johnny Erickson.

The North Stars cut the lead to 2-1 in the first. Benjamin threw away Jake Bergren's bunt and the Saints dropped balls in right field and shortstop, yet even with the 3 errors the North Stars managed just 1 run.

"I thought the first inning was key," St. Charles North coach Todd Genke said. "We score more than 1 run Benjamin might have been able to last as long as he did."

The only other run Benjamin allowed came on Kevin Borst's solo homer in the fourth. He exited the game after a grueling 33-pitch fifth inning when he went to a 3-ball count on all five batters he faced, yet didn't allow a run by getting Matt Stevens to pop out to strand two runners.

"Everyone was a little hyped up," Benjamin said of the shaky first inning. "I tried to calm everyone down including myself. We settled down, I found the strike zone better and it worked out better."

Benjamin allowed 6 hits, 3 walks and 2 runs, striking out two. Robert Wendt pitched the final two innings and didn't allow a hit, though he walked two and hit two batters.

"He's (Benjamin) a horse," Saints coach Dave Haskins said. "We made the change at the right time. He got a little tired at the end."

That was half the story. The other was the Saints offense - which managed 13 hits in 16 innings last week at the Geneva regional - exploding against four different North Star pitchers.

"Monday and Tuesday we've been taking hard core batting practice and everybody was focused from the get-go," O'Dell said. "We were watching the ball the whole way and we weren't chasing bad balls. At Geneva we were swinging at stuff over our heads. Here we toned it down a little more."

After their 2-run first, the Saints scored one in the second, two in the third, one in the fourth, two in the fifth and four in the sixth to take a 12-2 lead. The final run came home on Ryan Sotern's bunt single, a play that didn't sit well with the North Stars.

O'Dell's 4 hits included a double, 2 RBI and 3 runs, Sotern drove home 4 with his 3 hits, and Erickson, Tommy Konrad and Wendt all had 2 hits.

"When we come out with hitting like that we are in good shape," Haskins said. "We hit 1 through 9 in the lineup. We had great approaches. That's what we've been working on pretty much every day."

Defensively the Saints played error-free after the first. Erickson took a hit away from Ryan Richardson. St. Charles East survived a scare when Benjamin held on to a foul pop-up after colliding with first baseman Evan Prose.

"To give up only 1 (in the first) and then to put up more runs each inning was exciting," Haskins said. "We kept putting pressure on their defense."

Haskins said he'll turn to Wendt, Konrad, Tommy Laudadio and Mike Upton to handle the pitching Saturday against either a Wheaton North team the Saints haven't faced or a Lake Park team that won 2 of 3 from the Saints in Upstate Eight play.

Bergren and Borst both had 2 hits for the North Stars, who used pitchers Hudspeth, Austin Schuetz, John Munyon and Phil Warner, none lasting more than 2 innings.

"Our balls didn't drop, their balls did," Richardson said. "They outhit us, outpitched us. You are not going to win many games doing that."