Baseball: Zach Mettetal's walk off HR clinches league title for St. Charles North
Zach Mettetal has been on the St. Charles North baseball varsity all four seasons.
Monday afternoon at St. Charles North, the North Stars' senior had the most dramatic base hit of his career.
With Anthony Delisi aboard after a one-out walk, Mettetal hit a line drive home run to almost dead center to give St. Charles North a 5-3 walk-off win against archrival St. Charles East.
"What great way to clinch a conference championship," St. Charles North coach Todd Genke said after the North Stars improved to 26-4 and 22-1 in the Upstate Eight Conference. "It was a fitting end to a great baseball game. It was a really great swing by a really great baseball player."
"I have when I was really young," Mettetal said of a game-ending home run. "I was looking for a fastball and got a fastball. I just put the bat on the ball. When I hit it, I thought it was more of a line drive. I didn't think it was going to go out."
The Mettetal heroics overshadowed an equally pivotal moment for St. Charles North in the Saints' half of the seventh inning.
The North Stars' third pitcher of the game, Jason Shanner, more than earned a sense of redemption after committing back-to-back errors on St. Charles East sacrifice attempts.
The Saints (22-8, 16-5) tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the seventh on a Justin Galante bases-loaded single with no outs.
"I thought we were in a really good situation," St. Charles East coach Len Asquini said.
The Saints had the heart of their order - Kyle Titlges, John Carroll and Niko Klebosiits - coming up for them.
But Shanner earned perhaps the fireman performance of the spring by mowing down all three of the Saints' batter with strikeouts.
"What was going through my head was to attack, get ahead of them early," Shanner said. "I knew if I could get ahead of them early in the count, I could use some off-speed. I just had confidence in my stuff."
"It didn't work out today with runners in scoring position," Asquini said. "We couldn't get the big hit. (Shanner) struck out the side, our Nos. 3, 4 and 5. That's pretty dang impressive."
St. Charles North scored 3 two-out runs in the third inning to take a 3-1 lead.
The North Stars' Tyler Mettetal had a 2-run single, and Sam Faith plated Tyler Mettetal one batter later.
"Those are things we have been doing all year," Genke said of two-out run production. "It is demoralizing to the defense.
Galante and Pat Griffin had run-scoring singles for the Saints in the first and sixth innings.