Baseball: Barrington rallies from 2 down in 7th, stuns St. Charles North for sectional crown
Barrington trailed St. Charles North 3-1 as they headed to potentially its final at-bats of their season in Saturday's Class 4A baseball sectional final at McHenry as they faced North Stars reliever Joshua Kobylinski.
Then a single from first baseman Will Steffens after two outs cut the deficit in half to 3-2 which moved center fielder Zack Ostergaard to third.
After a long at-bat from pinch hitter Trevor Naughten drew a walk moving Steffens to second to fill the bases, left fielder Joe Mueller — who had gone 0-3 on the day up to this point — came to the plate.
Mueller worked the count to 2-2 on Kobylinski looking to keep Barrington alive.
"I was trying to see what his first (pitches) were and try and take him to a good count," Mueller said.
"He had thrown me a (mix) of curve balls and fastballs but I had tried two bunts earlier so I was thinking, if anything, to try and put the ball in play and see what happens."
What happened was that Mueller succeeded with a hit to right-center that brought home both Ostergaard and Steffens to give the Broncos (27-12) a 4-3 win and their first sectional since 2009, the ninth in school history.
It also gives them a ticket to Northwestern Medicine Field in Geneva Monday evening for a supersectional date against Maine South (24-15), a 9-0 winner over Lake Park (18-21) at the Bartlett sectional.
It will mark the second time the two schools will meet this spring as the Hawks defeated the Broncos 8-4 in Park Ridge three weeks ago.
"How about these guys," a proud Barrington coach Paul Belo, who has now guided two Mid-Suburban League schools to the Elite Eight having first taken Fremd to a Class 4A Final Four appearance in 2000.
"I'm proud of the way we found (ourselves) again and kept playing and gave ourselves an opportunity. Obviously with Mueller at the plate taking a chance with two strikes to do what he had to do. But how about Trevor and that at-bat just prior to Mueller, he kept the inning alive."
Perhaps some credit for keeping the Broncos afloat could go over to sophomore starting hurler Jack Postma.
After the North Stars (23-13-1) put a pair of runs on the board in their half of the first, Postma got the first of six strikeouts to aid in getting out of a bases-loaded jam.
He would go the distance allowing just 5 hits and surrendering two earned runs. His St. Charles North counterpart Ben Auer went five innings, allowing just one earned run and six hits as he fanned four.
On the other side of the field, North Stars coach Todd Genke and his assistants tried their to console their team as it fell just a strike away from their first Elite 8 berth since 2019.
"It's just not easy to get to this position," Genke said. "I just told them how proud we were of how they competed and what they brought every single day. I told them not to hang their heads. They were one of the best 16 teams in the state playing today."