Baseball: Buffalo Grove topples Prospect to become unlikely MSL East champ
There was no burial for these Bison.
Left for dead so many times this season, Buffalo Grove's baseball team looked to trade its bats for shovels to get out of an early grave. The Bison dug themselves all the way to the top Wednesday, winning the Mid-Suburban East title with an 8-2 win over Prospect in Buffalo Grove.
The Bison (15-10, 12-4) will play Friday at Barrington at 4:45 p.m. for the MSL title.
Buffalo Grove wasn't even thinking about that game early in the season. The Bison lost their first three conference games and were 2-9 at that point in the season.
"We have been playing for our lives since early in the season," said Buffalo Grove coach Bill Montemayor, who is in his first season as head coach after last year was canceled due to COVID-19.
"We started getting some confidence and it was their goal to go out and win the conference. These guys knew they had to win out and I am so happy for these guys."
Buffalo Grove won 9 conference games in a row to get back into the MSL East race. But a loss to Schaumburg last Friday, coupled with a Prospect win over Fremd, left the Bison three games back with three games to play.
The Bison won on Saturday and Prospect's loss to Palatine left BG just two back with games in Monday and Wednesday. Buffalo Grove beat Prospect 5-2 on Monday, setting up the winner-take-all game on Wednesday.
With the added momentum, Buffalo Grove hit Prospect with 7 runs in the third inning. The Bison took advantage of 3 Prospect errors, 3 walks and a wild pitch, parlaying it with 3 hits of their own for their runs. Kam Craft had a bases-loaded walk to drive in the first run. Connor Thiesen had an RBI single, Jack Alport a 2-run single, Tristan Figus an RBI fielder's choice, and an RBI single by Kyle Brosnahan finished the barrage.
"We are just clicking as team," Thiessen said. "We just came together and just rocked it. We had that bump early in the season, but once we clicked we came together."
It gave Alport all the runs he needed. The junior, who had 4 strikeouts and 2 walks, allowed just one fly ball out as the Bison played perfect defense behind him.
"It was a great game," said Alport, who went the distance and also had 3 hits of his own.
"We had a lot of energy going into it. This is the part of the game that I love. I love to compete and there was no way I was coming out."
Prospect (17-7, 12-4) was able to get a pair of runs in the fifth to close the gap to 7-2. Ethan Rossi and Brady Jensen each had an RBI fielder's choice.
Buffalo Grove scored its final run on a sacrifice fly by Alex Beihoffer to score Alport, who had doubled.
Figus, who is a senior, said that winning began to become contagious for the Bison.
"Our chemistry became a lot better as we began to win," Figus said. "We really began to bond as a team. Our energy then just exploded."
Prospect coach Russ Giusti said his team has made numerous mistakes down the stretch.
"The last week you can pinpoint it to walks and errors," Giusti said. "The toughest opponent we have faced is ourselves. We just can't get out of our own way right now. We have to find it and get back to what we do."