Remijas, Lyons too much for Schaumburg
Third baseman Matt Brancato gave Schaumburg a big early spark with a first-inning home run to stake the Saxons to a 1-0 lead in Monday’s Class 4A regional final.
But after that, it was all state-ranked Lyons Township — and pitcher Zach Remijas.
Remijas stuck out nine Saxons in 6⅓ innings, and top-seeded Lyons knocked out 12 hits en route to a 6-2 victory over host Schaumburg.
“We lost to a good ballclub today,” said Saxons coach Paul Groot. “Our guys played hard and that’s all you can ask, but we didn’t hit the ball well, and we’ve struggled with that all year.
“Their kid (Remijas) was mowing us down.”
Lyons (32-4) struck back to take the lead for good in the second inning when Brian Kelley’s homer gave them a 2-1 lead.
“I wasn’t too worried about giving up 1 run,” Remijas said. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in our offense.”
Schaumburg (16-13) pitcher Ryan Hayes, who relieved starter Pat Bellinger in the fourth, got out of a big jam in that inning and allowed Lyons only 1 more run.
It looked like Hayes would shut down Lyons again in the fifth when he induced a towering infield popup with two outs and two runners on base, but the ball was lost in the sun and 2 runs scored to put the Lions up 5-1.
“That kind of took the wind out of our sails,” Groot said.
Lyons scored again in the bottom of the sixth, while the Saxons plated their final run in the seventh on a run-scoring single by junior Tom Byrne.
Bellinger struck out five Lions in 3 innings, while Hayes pitched well in relief.
“Our pitching and defense has carried us all year,” Groot said. “Our team ERA is around three, and in 30 games teams have scored more than 4 runs against us only five times.”
“We were excited to play against Lyons,” Hayes said. “We had nothing to lose. Everyone thought they were going to come in here and kill us, so we played loose and we played hard.
“We were right in the game the entire way, but a couple of bad breaks hurt us. Matt (Brancato) got us going early, then we ran out of luck. They’ve got a great hitting team from No. 1 all the way down to No. 9.”