Glenbard North victorious in bottom of seventh

Had the Class 4A Wheaton North baseball regional championship between Wheaton Warrenville South and Glenbard North been a novel, it would have been hailed as a taut thriller.

From the first inning, when both pitchers escaped major jams, to the last at-bat, a game-winning double from Glenbard North senior Brandon Clark, the teams’ combined artfulness told the story.

The conference rivals’ error-free contest was decided in walk-off fashion when the Panthers’ Mark Ng raced home from second base after Clark rifled a shot off the right-center field fence to give fifth-seeded Glenbard North a 4-3 bottom-of-the-seventh-inning victory.

“There’s a lot of things that go through your mind when you’re in that situation,” Clark said of his one-out double with runners on first and second. “The one thing I wanted to focus on was hitting it hard somewhere.”

Ng, who was tagging second base in case the ball was caught, narrowly escaped the Tigers’ relay to score the winning run.

“I went about halfway (to third) and decided to tag,” Ng said. “(All I could think about was) just sprint as hard as I could.”

It was the only run of the game not produced with a two-out hit.

The Panthers’ (23-11) first postseason hardware in eight years earned the squad a Wednesday trip to the St. Charles North sectional and a date with top-seeded Lyons Twp., which defeated regional host Schaumburg 6-2 Monday afternoon.

Thirteen-seeded WW South had its season close at 20-14.

The teams’ fourth meeting of the spring continued the storyline from the regular season.

“All three games were nail-biters,” Glenbard North coach Rich Smelko said of the schools’ three DuPage Valley Conference games.

The tenor of the game was forged in the opening inning when starting pitchers Matt Frawley and Jeremy Rhoades pitched out of serious jams.

Frawley allowed the Tigers’ Mark Shelton a leadoff triple to begin the game, only to strand runners at the corners.

Rhoades’ complete-game effort began with Anthony Keener and Ng reaching with an infield single and double, respectively.

But neither runner would advance any farther.

Glenbard North drew first blood when Jake Kline had the first of his two doubles to score Keener in the third.

But WW South came right back, receiving a clutch two-out single from Rich O’Neil in its half of the fourth.

The theme of two-out basehits was continued in the Panthers’ fourth when Sean Fogarty exploited a pair of passed balls to score Ryan Gallagher and Ryan Tintera with a single to right.

“Two-out hits are key,” Clark said. “(The Fogarty hit) put us in position to win the game.”

But WW South refused to wilt, knotting the game for a second time in its sixth on a RJ Hoshell double and Dan Roadman single.

Will Petrosky pitched a scoreless seventh for Glenbard North to set up the Clark heroics.

“It was one of those games where you didn’t want to give them another at-bat,” WW South coach Tim Brylka said. “(Glenbard North) swung (the bats) a little more than we did.”