Baseball: Barrington beats Meadows, advances to MSL title game

Barrington won the arms race Monday to advance to the Mid-Suburban League baseball championship game.

The Broncos’ Will Renshaw, Dylan Ignacek and Jack Postma outdueled Rolling Meadows’ Luke Schneider as Barrington won 2-0 at home.

The Broncos will play in Thursday’s title game against the winner of the Prospect-Schaumburg game, which was postponed until Tuesday due to wet field conditions.

Should Schaumburg, the MSL East division champion, win that game, the Saxons would host on Thursday. If Prospect wins, the title game would be at Barrington.

Barrington and Meadows were the first semifinal game in MSL history in the new playoff format. And it was a game to remember with both teams getting great pitching in the 98-minute contest.

“The pitching was tremendous on both ends.” Barrington coach Paul Belo said. “It was really good to see Will (Renshaw) back on the mound. We were trying to get his pitch count up a little bit.”

Renshaw started the game for the Broncos (20-11) and allowed only the two hits for Meadows in the game.

The senior had been sidelined for nearly five weeks with arm tightness until he threw one inning on Friday. Renshaw threw the first four innings Monday and struck out five in a 64-pitch outing.

“It was good to get back on the mound,” said Renshaw, who plans to pitch at Southeastern Community College in Burlington, Iowa next season. “The first inning was a little struggle throwing strikes.”

Ignacek, who was the closer for Barrington last season, came on in the top of the fifth.

That’s when Rolling Meadows (19-11), which beat Barrington 11-3 nearly a month ago, had its only major scoring opportunity. The Mustangs had runners on the corners thanks to an error, a sacrifice bunt and a walk. But Ignacek got a fly out to center to end the threat.

“It was good to see Will out there,” said Ignacek, who earned the win. “I knew what the plan was. I am used to (relieving), because I did it so much last year. I really had a feel for my curveball today.”

Schneider kept Barrington in check thanks to four strikeouts and some solid defense, which included throwing a runner out at the plate.

Barrington finally broke through in the fifth.

Joseph Mueller led off with a single and went from first to third on a Bowie Heintz bunt single. But Mueller was thrown out on the plate on Ryan Costello’s attempted suicide squeeze.

After a strikeout, it appeared Meadows and Schneider would escape. But Max Wrzeszcz got a wind-blown double to right to score Heintz and pinch runner Austin Sparr for the game’s only runs.

“When I was running down the first baseline it was really nerve racking,” Wrzeszcz said. “I thought at first the ball would get down and then the wind picked up and started to carry it. I just wanted it to land just for my team and all of us.”

Meadows managed one last scoring effort when, with two outs on the seventh, Tyler Stakiewicz walked. Belo summoned Postma, who threw four pitches including three for strikes, to get the final out.

“Our kids clutched up on top of the hill today,” Belo said. “And then Max was able to get one off to the opposite side.”

Meadows coach Niko Klebosits said the lack of offense on Monday hurt his team.

“It’s tough to scratch runs with two hits on the day,” Klebosits said. “Credit Barrington for that. But Schneider was working with tempo today for us. He was throwing three pitches at a high level.”