Palatine blasts way to regional title

Each season, Palatine baseball coach Paul Belo diligently teaches his players the finer points of small ball.

Bunts, hit-and-runs…that’s the kind of baseball Belo likes. And the style has worked just fine for the Pirates over the years.

But this year, something else has worked just as well, if not better.

“At the beginning of the season, we were joking with coach (Belo),” Palatine senior centerfielder Dan Haze said. “We said, ‘Coach, we know how you like to bunt and all that, but we’re going to be a home run team this year.’”

The Pirates get an ‘A’ for self-awareness.

Palatine set a school record this season — blew the old record out of the water, actually — for most team home runs with 29 during the regular season.

That number jumped even higher on Saturday when the Pirates did what they do best: smack the ball out of the park.

Powered by 4 home runs, including a monster grand slam by Haze, Palatine rolled over top-seeded Mundelein 15-4 in six innings to win the Barrington regional title, avenging a first-round loss to the Mustangs last year.

The No. 9 Pirates, who also got home runs from Cody Bobbit, Kurt Becker and Joe Walsh, improve to 23-14. They won their third regional title and first since 2001 and will face No. 4 Warren in Wednesday’s 4:30 p.m. sectional semifinal at Barrington.

Mundelein closes out a campaign in which it sped out to a 20-0 start with a 27-8 record.

“We knew we could hit the ball like this,” said Haze, who had 3 of Palatine’s 12 hits. In addition to the home run, he also had a double and a single. “We just have a lot of guys on this team who can really hit the ball. That was my fifth home run of the year. Becker has (seven) now, Cody has 6 and both Walsh (four) and (Jim) Smearman have around 5.

“It was fun and I’d say this was definitely my best hitting game of the year. I just squared up and drove the ball hard instead of hitting weak grounders.”

The fireworks for Palatine, which has gotten a home run this year from every player in its starting lineup, didn’t begin until the third inning, when Becker hit his 2-run homer over the left field wall.

But by then, the Pirates already owned a 5-2 lead thanks to a bombshell first inning that was difficult for Mundelein to make sense of.

Right out of the box, Palatine went up 5-0 in the top half of the inning by capitalizing on 3 Mundelein errors and 3 walks.

“To get down early like that is hard,” Mundelein coach Todd Parola. “We knew we had a major challenge in front of us from the start and Palatine didn’t let up. We kept fighting and scrapping but every time we answered, they answered us right back.”

The Mustangs cut their deficit to 8-4 in the third inning, thanks to a home run by Nik Gastfield. But that celebration was short-lived.

Palatine put together its biggest inning in the fourth, scoring 5 runs on 3 hits, including Haze’s grand slam.

“It’s just really disappointing that we couldn’t win this and get further,” Gastfield said. “The first inning was just not good. We knew we had to come back, and we kind of did. We had energy and we tried to get some runs. We just couldn’t get enough.”

Gastfield also had a double while teammates Luis Carrasco and Jordan Wiegold had 2 hits apiece. Besides that, no one else had multiple hits or extra bases for the Mustangs.

Becker, Palatine’s starter, was solid for the first three innings and then reliever Eric Scheuermann closed the game in the same fashion.

Meanwhile, the Mustangs just couldn’t find the right rhythm on the mound. They went through four pitchers.

“We knew that if we could get Mundelein down right away, it would help us a lot,” Haze said. “That’s what we were able to do with that 5-0 first inning. We were able (to get in their heads). We never let them think they were in the game.”

Meanwhile, Palatine has been in just the right frame of mind ever since it got a handle on its slow start to the season. It has won 12 of its last 15 with two losses in extra innings and the other by 1 run.

“This is a team that started the season 1-5,” Belo said. “We definitely had to have a shift in our thought process and the way we do things. But these kids were willing to listen and take the coaching and now they’ve got so much confidence.

“Whether or not we can make a run from here will be determined day by day. But these kids know they can do it.”