Naperville Central bats at full force

Anyone feel like pitching to Naperville Central's lineup right now? Didn't think so.

The Redhawks' baseball team again pounded their way through a playoff game by hammering Naperville North 19-6 in six innings at Saturday's Class 4A Naperville Central regional title game.

Seventh-seeded Naperville Central (22-14), which won its third regional title in four years, advances to the Lockport sectional semifinals to face the third-seeded host school at 6 p.m. Thursday.

After scoring 33 runs on 26 hits in two regional wins, the Redhawks head to the next round with piping hot bats.

"Mentally we were really prepared for this game," said Redhawks junior Marc Mantucca. "We had three real good games against North in the regular season, so we came in ready to go."

Hard to believe, but No. 2 Naperville North (25-8) - which took two of three from the Redhawks in the regular season - held a 3-0 lead after two innings. That changed quickly in a nightmarish top of the third for the Huskies, who committed 4 errors while Naperville Central poured on 8 runs on 6 hits.

All the damage came with two outs, including a 2-run error on a miscommunication stemming from a steal of second base. A string of hits followed, capped by Pat Kaminska's 2-run triple and a 2-run double by Ryan Walsh.

Naperville Central added 4 runs in the fourth inning on RBI hits by Mantucca, Bob Czarnowski, who went 4-for-4, and Matt Soria.

"Nobody would have projected something like this, certainly not I," said Huskies coach Carl Hunckler. "This is five straight years in the regional championship game and not coming away with any hardware. It was an ugly way to end a great season."

Aside from the bashing bats, the Redhawks received quite a mound recovery by sophomore lefty Dan Ludwig (6-1), who retired 10 straight after surrendering the 3 early runs.

Naperville Central added 7 runs in the sixth inning as Kaminska, Nick Linne, Matt Cmiel, Mantucca and Czarnowski drove in runs. Dan Grimley and Alex Khoury had RBI hits for the Huskies in the bottom of the sixth.

"We aren't 13 runs better, but we felt like going into the series 13 days ago that if we played good baseball, we'd take our chances on what happened," said Redhawks coach Bill Seiple. "Our guys are swinging it with confidence right now. We see so many good pitchers in (the DuPage Valley Conference), we really aren't intimidated by anybody."