Antioch gets payback win

Antioch’s “Goon” landed punch lines.

When he wasn’t busy pitching Antioch’s baseball team to a 6-3 payback win over Wauconda in the teams’ Class 3A regional semifinal at Richmond-Burton on Friday, Ryan Dragoon, who’s called “Goon” by his teammates, kept active from the dugout fence by peppering fellow Sequoits with nicknames of their own.

Dragoon, for example, was calling junior second baseman Emery Paramski “The Blizzard Man,” because Paramski works for Dairy Queen.

Dragoon’s nickname for future Illinois State Redbird and current senior shortstop Paul DeJong?

“Birdman.”

Antioch delivered the ultimate knockout for its “Goon.”

The Sequoits knocked out Wauconda tough-luck starter Jeremy Wagner in the bottom of the fifth after Mitch Everett (1-for-3, RBI) singled and Alex Grimm drew his second walk of the game.

That’s the same Jeremy Wagner who no-hit Antioch and outdueled Dragoon in a 1-0 Bulldogs’ win exactly two weeks earlier.

Adam Warner made sure early that Wagner wouldn’t throw another no-hitter. Warner, Antioch’s No. 2 hitter, lined a sharp single to left in the bottom of the first. DeJong followed with another single.

“We came out wanting to win (after) we came close to them the last time,” said Warner, who went 2-for-2 with a sacrifice fly, sacrifice bunt and 3 stolen bases.

“The first time (a 14-8 loss) we just didn’t play well at all. We knew we could win this time. We just came out and played good baseball.”

The win vaulted Antioch (21-9), the regional’s No. 2 seed, into today’s 10 a.m. final against top-seeded Richmond-Burton.

Third-seeded Wauconda, which won its first North Suburban Conference Prairie Division championship this season, finished 16-13.

“We knew we were going to face (Dragoon) and, actually, when ‘Wags’ threw the no-hitter, he pitched pretty well, too,” Wauconda coach Bill Sliker said. “It was kind of the game we thought it was going to be. We knew (Dragoon) was going to pitch well, and we thought ‘Wags’ was going to pitch well. It really comes down to who’s going to play the better defense and come up with the big hits. I felt like we didn’t.”

Antioch got key at-bats in a 4-run second, which proved to be the difference. Wagner walked three in the inning, but a throwing error resulted in all of the runs being unearned. The ISU-bound DeJong (2-for-4) capped the frame with an RBI double.

“We kind of broke the ice there and got it rolling, and the kids felt good about it,” Sequoits coach Paul Petty said. “The pressure went off a little bit.”

Bob Pranke cracked an RBI single in the third for Antioch, and Joe Gregory’s run-scoring double in the fourth made it 6-3, after Wauconda had scored all of its runs in the top half of the inning.

Dragoon, a 6-foot-5, 215-pound right-hander who will pitch for Benedictine University, threw 117 pitches in a complete-game effort. He allowed 9 hits and 3 walks, but also struck out nine. Only 1 of the runs he yielded was earned.

Dragoon wriggled out of multiple jams, with Wauconda stranding nine runners on base.

“Trying to locate after I got behind batters was pretty key,” said Dragoon, who improved to 7-4. “They do hit, and we had to work around it.”

Erik Maki went 3-for-4 with a double for Wauconda, and Wagner was 2-for-3. Shawn Sundquist and Tony Kaminsky coaxed bases-loaded walks for the Bulldogs.

“They say it’s tough to beat a team three times, but if you hit like Wauconda can hit, you can beat a team five times,” Petty said. “If you hit, you stay in ballgames. And they can hit.”

Antioch stole 5 bases in 6 attempts.

“They got a good running game,” Sliker said. “We couldn’t stop their running game at all.”