Palatine, Becker surge to title
One of the leaders of the surge toward Palatine pitcher Kurt Becker was batterymate Mike Czarnik.
And Czarnik was clearly charged up about Becker’s performance after the Pirates won their Class 4A baseball regional title 6-3 over Libertyville late Saturday afternoon.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound catcher slammed Becker to the ground and started a huge Pirate pileup on the right side of the infield. Good thing Becker is as tough as he showed he was on the mound.
“I’ve never been hit that hard, ever,” the four-year football player said with a smile. “I was going for Scott (second baseman Schneberger) and Mike came flying in behind me. He’s a huge guy. But it was great.”
Especially since a month ago few would have seen any of this coming for the 14th-seeded Pirates (18-19).
After upsets of No. 5 Libertyville (24-12) and No. 4 Hersey in the regional semifinal they are going to Wednesday’s 4:30 p.m. Glenbrook South sectional semifinal in Glenview. They’ll face top-seeded Mundelein (33-4), which won its regional title 7-3 over No. 9 Fremd.
“It’s gratifying to know we can go out and beat teams people thought would beat us,” said Schneberger, who went 2-for-4 with an RBI as the Pirates had 14 hits. “It’s more gratifying that people didn’t expect it.”
Becker (5-4) scattered 7 hits and went 3-for-3 along with Zach Serna as the Pirates won for the ninth time in 11 games. Head coach Paul Belo and his son Brian were hit with a celebratory ice-water dousing after they won consecutive regional titles for the first time in program history.
“These seniors have been so amazing and I owe them so much,” Belo said. “They continued to stick together and it’s been awesome to watch.
“They had so many opportunities to decide this isn’t important to them.”
Becker, the MSL West co-player of the year, mixed his fastball, curve and changeup to throw 64 of his 95 pitches for strikes in a game pushed back six hours to a 4 p.m. start after a morning downpour. He had 5 strikeouts and 1 walk and only 1 run was earned.
“I have to work the zones and trust my fielders and I’ve trusted them all year,” Becker said. “They’ve done great things for me.”
Palatine started the third with one-out singles by Becker and Schneberger off Libertyville ace Darwin Townsend. Jarrod Juskiewicz lined an RBI single to left-center.
Schneberger took third on the throw home and scored when no one was looking for Evan Skoug’s throw to second. Juskiewicz took third and scored on Nick Roy’s safety squeeze bunt.
Schneberger’s two-out RBI single after an intentional walk to Becker put Palatine up 4-0 in the fourth.
“You have to tip your hat to them, they swung the bats 1 through 9,” said Libertyville coach Jim Schurr. “We felt we had a pretty good idea of how to pitch them. They found holes and made plays.”
Libertyville cut the lead in half in the fourth on a double by Skoug, an RBI single by Matt Vogt (2-for-3) and Kevin McQuillen’s sacrifice fly. But singles by Roy and Austin Eliades (2-for-4) led to Palatine sacrifice flies by Czarnik (2-for-3) and Anthony Fortunato in the fifth.
Libertyville thought Skoug had a sacrifice fly in the fifth and disputed the call on center fielder Eric Scheuermann’s throw to Czarnik to nail Nick Coutre (2-for-3). Becker gave up a run in the sixth but retired the final five hitters.
“He’s a workhorse,” Schneberger said.
“It’s been a blast,” Becker said. “We didn’t start off great but the whole time has been a fun ride.”