Little change to Fox Valley postseason
The sectional baseball assignments released by the Illinois High School Association late last week have a familiar look to them from a Fox Valley perspective.
Of the 20 teams entered in last year’s Class 4A Larkin sectional, 17 return to the DeKalb sectional, fed by regional sites at Huntley, Hoffman Estates, McHenry and Rockford Boylan.
DeKalb and Prairie Ridge, both Class 3A schools last season, return to 4A and replace Conant, Rolling Meadows and Schaumburg on the ever-shifting IHSA map.
The five-team Huntley regional field includes two teams with recent experience in state tournament games at Sliver Cross Field in Joliet. Huntley finished fourth in Class 4A last year; DeKalb (10-10) was the Class 3A state runner-up.
Dundee-Crown (12-9), Jacobs (4-10) and Rockford Jefferson round out the field. D-C outscored rival Jacobs 27-5 in a doubleheader sweep last Saturday.
“It’s looking like a tough regional,” said Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski, whose team is off to a 14-1 start and remains undefeated (9-0) in the Fox Valley Conference. “D-C is athletic and can swing it, Jacobs with their (Nos.) 1 and 2 (pitchers) can be very good and you have the second-place team in the state in 3A. It’s going to be very competitive.”
Streamwood (14-1) and South Elgin (11-3) could be destined for a regional title game rematch at Hoffman Estates. Last year, the Storm won the first regional plaque in program history when they overcame a 12-2 deficit to win 13-12.
In their only meeting this season, the Sabres edged South Elgin 4-3 in nine innings.
Larkin (8-9), Elgin (2-9-1) and the host Hawks will try to foil such a rematch.
Cary-Grove (12-7), which was swept in a doubleheader by McHenry last Saturday, may get another crack at the Warriors the week of May 23. McHenry (11-8) will host the Trojans in a regional that will also include Crystal Lake South (11-4) and Prairie Ridge (4-13).
Rockford Boylan will host an all NIC-10 Conference regional Harlem, Auburn, Guilford and Hononegah. Its is the identical field as last year’s Rockford-based regional, won by Hononegah.
Bartlett (4-11), will compete in the 22-team St. Charles North sectional, which features regionals at Geneva, Schaumburg, Wheaton North and Willowbrook.
Class 3A: Hampshire will host a Class 3A regional for the second straight year. The field is a duplicate of the Hampshire boys basketball regional last March. It includes the host Whip-Purs (10-5), rival Burlington Central (10-4), Crystal Lake Central (8-10) and Marmion (7-4).
Burlington Central defeated Hampshire 8-2 in a regional semifinal last season and went on to beat Prairie Ridge for the title. However, last week Hampshire defeated Central 5-3 on Rocket Hill, thereby ending the Rockets’ 24-game Big Northern East winning streak.
Class 2A: This could be the start of an era in which Westminster Christian (15-5) and St. Edward (3-14) face each other regularly in regional play.
The top-seeded Warriors will host a 2A regional that feeds into the Benedictine sectional after making the jump from Class 1A to 2A this season. The regional field, which was seeded Thursday, also includes No. 2 Niles Northridge Prep, No. 3 St. Edward, No. 4 Ida Crown and No. 5 Rickover Naval Academy of Chicago.
“I thought we would be with St. Ed’s somewhere,” said Jeff Moeller, coach of the reigning Class 1A state champion Warriors. “I’m a little surprised because I thought we would have stayed a little west with Harvard and Genoa, but shifting us east is fine.”
St. Edward will likely play Northridge Prep in the semifinal with Westminster Christian squaring off against the play-in winner. The two Elgin private schools could meet for the regional title.
“St. Ed’s has struggled this year but they play in a good conference, so we can never take anything for granted when we play them,” Moeller said. “You can’t look at their record because they’re seeing good competition every day.”