DeFilippis blasts St. Charles E. to regional title

As he stepped into the batter’s box with runners on the corners and 2 out in the bottom of the first inning, St. Charles East’s Troy DeFilippis was looking for one thing.

“I was looking for a fastball on the inner half,” said DeFilippis. “It was right where I wanted it.”

The left-handed hitting junior slammed the first pitch he saw over the fence in right-center for a 3-run home run to cap a 4-run first and propel the Saints (25-10) to a 5-3 Class 4A regional championship victory over 11th-seeded Glenbard East (21-16) Saturday in St. Charles.

DeFilippis, who has been one of the Saints’ best hitters throughout the season, carried a lot of confidence with him to the plate against Rams’ southpaw starter D.J. Spears.

“I told the bench that if I get an inside fastball, I’ll hit a homer,” said DeFilippis, who doubled his previous home run total with one swing of the bat (he now has 2).

It was one of several clutch 2-out base hits recorded by the Saints, who captured their third consecutive regional title.

Johnny Hondlik got the Saints on the board with his 2-out RBI double before designated hitter Tommy Wilson kept the inning alive with a 2-out single to set the stage for DeFilippis’ long ball.

“Johnny got the RBI double and Tommy had a big at-bat to keep the line moving,” said Saints coach Len Asquini.

After reaching on a fielder’s choice, Jordan Hayes tagged up and took second on Joe Hoscheit’s deep fly out before coming across on Hondlik’s double.

“The advancement of Jordan getting over to second on Joe’s fly ball down the right-field line was huge,” said Asquini.

Glenbard East tallied a run in the top half of the second when Chris Milligan doubled before courtesy runner Cody Hallcox scored on Joe Kotch’s sacrifice fly to short right field.

But the Saints answered in the bottom half of the frame, as Jack Dellostritto walked, stole second and came across on Hayes’ 2-out triple to right-center to make it 5-1.

Glenbard East chased Saints starting pitcher Nick Huskisson (5-2) in the fifth after Mike Hansen’s 2-run single with the bases loaded closed the gap to 5-3.

With runners on first and third and 2 out, senior reliever Luke Ludke was brought in to face the Rams’ Danny Ryan.

When Ludke got ahead 0-2, the Rams tried to catch the Saints’ defense napping.

As Hansen began walking toward second base, Ludke stepped off the mound and threw the ball to shortstop Nicholas Erickson. With Hansen caught in a rundown, Joe Plimmer took off from third but Saints first baseman Hondlik fired a strike to catcher Hoscheit, who applied the tag to Plimmer to end the threat.

“There were two outs and I waited until the batter had two strikes on him,” said Rams coach Joel Pelland. “I wanted to put some pressure on them to make a play. To their credit, they handled it the right way.”

Ludke wasn’t caught off guard while facing his first batter.

“We practice that play all the time so it wasn’t really a surprise for us,” said Ludke.

“Everything worked out perfectly defending that first-and-third play,” said Asquini. “With an 0-2 count, you kind of figured something might be up.”

Ludke, who was held out of the starting lineup, pitched a scoreless sixth and seventh on the way to his first save.

“We thought that we might need him to do that today so we kept him on the bench,” Asquini said of Ludke. “We wanted him to be ready and focused on that (relieving). Unfortunately we had to use him but fortunately he came in and was huge.”

Not too bad for a guy who elected not to play baseball as a junior last season.

“Coming from nothing to this playoff run, winning a regional and conference — it’s awesome,” said Ludke.

The third-seeded Saints will face No. 10 Schaumburg in Wednesday night’s sectional semifinals at Boomers Stadium in Schaumburg.