Third-place finish suits Grant perfectly
JOLIET — No-hit through three innings, Grant’s baseball team had no reason to fret.
“I was a little worried,” coach Dave Behm said.
But nobody’s perfect. Not twice in a row, anyway.
In Saturday’s Class 4A third-place game, Minooka started Kevin Ruff against Grant. Ruff was rough on O’Fallon in the sectional final, as the senior righty threw a perfect game.
Ruff’s bid for a second straight “perfecto” had ended immediately, as he walked Grant leadoff hitter Jake Ring to start the game.
In the end, it ended perfectly for Grant, which used one big inning to capture a 7-1 win and finish an unforgettable postseason run by hoisting the third-place trophy at Silver Cross Field.
“All (postseason) it’s been lose and go home, and (at state) it’s lose and play again tomorrow,” Behm said. “So I think it was tough (to play Saturday after losing Friday). Obviously we were down (Friday). We had been flying high for three weeks. But these guys did a great job coming back. We just said, ‘This is our last day together. Let’s make the best of it that we can.’
“And bringing home a third-place trophy would make it the best we can.”
Grant, which finished up 26-12, trailed 1-0 after Max Brozovich’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the third. But in the fourth, the Bulldogs finally got to the Benedictine University-bound Ruff.
Tino Torres led off with a single into right-center. Then after a fly out, the hit parade started. The Bulldogs got consecutive singles from Brent Spohr, Simeon Lucas, Tyler Gorski, Jacob Adams and Eddie Kusiak.
Lucas’ single tied the game. Adams’ perfectly placed suicide squeeze between the mound and third base scored Spohr with the go-ahead run.
It was déjà vu for Grant, which also got a successful squeeze bunt from Adams in the regional final against Cary-Grove.
“I just get the sign from the coach and get the bunt down,” Adams said.
He’s executed the squeeze more than twice this season.
“Several times,” Adams said.
“It’s kind of a momentum shift when you get the bunt down, get the run and get the guy on,” Behm said.
Ring added a 2-run single in the fourth, and Torres’ RBI base hit capped the 6-run, 8-hit frame.
“That fourth inning, where we kind of broke it open, we changed our approach a little bit,” Behm said. “We just got on a roll. We’ve had a lot of big innings this year so that was nothing new for us.
“(Ruff) was throwing a lot of off-speed so we just tried to hit the other way,” Behm added.
Torres tied an unofficial state record with 2 hits in one inning. The sophomore had bounced into a 6-4-3 double play in the first.
“My first at-bat of the game, 4 out of the 5 pitches (Ruff) threw me were curveballs,” said Torres, who was 2-for-4 in both of the Bulldogs’ games at state. “So my approach was to sit curveball, and I just got a curveball (twice) that I could hit, and I got it done.”
Grant had only one other hit — a double by Ryan Noda in the sixth. Noda scored on Ring’s sacrifice fly, his third RBI of the game.
While Jake Trumpis pitched 4 innings for the win, and Lucas threw the final 3 for the save, Grant sparkled in the field.
For the second game in a row, third baseman Gorski dived to spear a line drive. Torres, after going in at catcher, threw out a runner trying to advance on a pitch in the dirt. Noda made a running catch on a ball hit over to his head in left field to end a fourth-inning threat.
“They made just a ton of great defensive plays to squash any momentum we might have built,” said Minooka coach Jeff Petrovic, whose Indians finished 27-15.
In addition to getting his first varsity hit, the freshman Kusiak made two nice plays at shortstop filling in for the injured Jordan Villarreal (broken jaw) for the second straight game.
Kusiak turned a 4-6-3 double play and made a jumping catch of a line drive.
“He’s real athletic,” Behm said. “He did a nice job filling in in a tough spot.”