Another first for Neuqua Valley's program
Neuqua Valley's baseball program has won everything from Upstate Eight Conference titles to state championships, and now the Wildcats will be adding some new hardware to the trophy case.
The Wildcats claimed their first summer regional championship with Thursday's 7-0 victory over Wheaton North in the Phil Lawler Summer Classic at Glenbard South in Glen Ellyn.
Making their debut appearance in the IHSBCA Elite Eight double-elimination state tournament next week, the Wildcats (29-3) begin play against Providence, the champion of the Sandburg regional, at 10 a.m. Monday at Lisle's Benedictine University.
"It's another accomplishment that we can put in the bank," said Wildcats coach Robin Renner. "We told these kids our school has never done that before. And now this group has done something the school's never done, and good for them."
Second-seeded Wheaton North (22-6) came into the game having beaten its first three regional opponents by a combined score of 31-6. Neuqua Valley junior starter Nick Blackburn, however, stymied the Falcons in a 94-pitch complete game.
Blackburn scattered 5 hits with 2 walks and a hit batter. He notched 7 strikeouts against a Falcons lineup that didn't strike out in its two prior games.
"I knew if I threw strikes and I let them put the ball in play, I had a great defense behind me," Blackburn said.
Blackburn and Falcons sophomore starting pitcher Tom Colletti were locked in a pitchers' duel until top-seeded Neuqua Valley broke through for a pair of runs, one unearned, in the bottom of the third inning. Both runs scored on Tanner Giesel's infield single.
Three unearned runs came home in the fourth inning. Mike Bogar scored the first run on a first-and-third double steal. Andrew Skowronski and Nick Oleskowicz added back-to-back RBI doubles.
"We played pretty darn well for three days and we just didn't have it today," said Wheaton North coach Dan Schoessling. "We ran into a good pitcher, and that's going to happen, and we weren't as sharp defensively as we've been for most of the summer."
Wheaton North's Micah Penn accounted for 2 of the team's 5 hits. Oleskowicz and Jeff Samuel, who blasted a 2-run homer in the sixth inning, had 2 hits apiece for the Wildcats.
"I knew we were always a solid team, it's just in the (spring) playoffs we just couldn't come through with the clutch basehit," Samuel said. "(This week) we got a bunch of hits and our pitching was real solid."