Baseball: Maine South capitalizes on Naperville Central’s miscues, advances to 4A state title game
Maine South followed the bouncing ball to spring its way into the Class 4A state title game.
The Hawks tallied three runs in the first inning thanks to a hit and hustle from Gavin Krischke. Maine South then rolled from there for a 9-1 win over Naperville Central on Friday in Joliet.
Maine South (26-15), which is making its first appearance in the state finals since 1966, will be playing Libertyville in the state title game at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“This is something we have been working towards ever since last year’s supersectional game,” Maine South coach Brian Lorenz said. “We put kids in position to challenge them. And when you talk about postseason baseball, it takes seven wins to get the job done. We haven’t had a seven-game winning streak all year with the schedule that we play, because we challenge ourselves.”
Maine South used some timely hitting and base running from Krischke to take the lead for good.
With two outs in the bottom of the first, the Hawks had runners on second and third. Krischke hit a ball that just barely deflected off the glove of the Naperville Central second baseman.
That easily scored Joaquin Fabragas, who was running for Luka Stojakovic, who had singled. Nate Sera, who was on second, slid safely home with the second run.
But the play was hardly over.
Krischke was taking second on the throw home. As he slid safely into second, the throw to second hit his helmet and defected into left centerfield. Krischke jumped out, ran to third and never stopped until he slid safely home for a 3-0 lead.
“I saw it hit up the middle and I knew it got by him,” Krischke said. “They threw it home and I ran to second and they tried to get me and the ball hit my helmet. I saw it trickle out to center and coach Lorenz just waved me home. I knew he was going to send me to get that third run.”
That Maine South outburst came just a half-inning after Naperville Central had loaded the bases against Hawks starter Connor Griffin. But the Rollins College commit got a groundout to end the threat.
Maine South put the game away in its next at-bat.
The Hawks loaded the bases on a pair of walks and an error. Evan Adamczewski got an RBI as he barely beat out the back end of a double play attempt of his ground ball. Stojakovic followed with a triple to the right center gap scoring two runs. Courtesy runner Fabragas trotted home easily on Sean Sladky’s single to make it 7-0.
“I was just thinking, see the ball deep,” Stojakovic said. “And he left a curve in the middle and I just saw it deep and blasted it the other way.”
Naperville Central (30-10) loaded the bases again in the fifth. But Griffin beared down a second time, getting the next three batters out.
The Redhawks finally broke through in the fifth. Ryley Orlanes drove in Michael Page on a fielder’s choice to make it 7-1.
Maine South got the run back in its half of the inning. Pinch hitter Nick Massucci lined a single to right to score Cera.
The Hawks tallied their final run on Stojakovic’s third RBI on a sacrifice fly. He drove in Adamczewski, who reached on Naperville Central’s fifth error.
“It’s crunch time now,” Lorenz said. “Our guys are playing very, very well. We are very excited for all of Maine South baseball to be able to experience a state championship game.”
Naperville Central coach Mike Stock said that 5 errors, 5 walks and leaving the bases loaded really hurt his team.
“We’ve thrown strikes when we had to and today we didn’t,” Stock said. “And walks and a couple too many errors and that key hitting hurt. And if you look at the way we have executed defensively, that’s nothing we’ve done in the last six weeks.”