Barton, Cats ice Scouts

It was a trick that was worthy of a hat.

That's what Tommy Myers was convinced of, anyway.

After Libertyville pitcher Troy Barton handed his team a loss for the third time this season Thursday afternoon, the Lake Forest coach said he knew exactly what he needed to do.

"I need to send Barton a hat, a nice Lake Forest hat," Myers said. "He beat us three times. It's the old hat trick."

Indeed, Barton is a perfect 3-0 against Lake Forest this season after Libertyville's 3-0 victory in a regional semifinal at Carmel.

The latest win propels the fourth-seeded Wildcats (22-11) into Saturday's regional championship game where they'll face the winner of today's 3:30 p.m. semifinal game at Carmel between No. 12 Warren and No. 5 Carmel.

Meanwhile, No. 13 Lake Forest closes out the season with a 19-14 record after managing just 3 hits against Barton.

Barton also rolled up 8 strikeouts and allowed only 2 walks against Lake Forest in moving his record on the mound to 6-4.

"My sophomore year when we played Lake Forest I pitched the whole game and I walked in the winning run with the bases loaded," said Barton, who will be pitching at Eastern Illinois next spring. "That was horrible. I promised myself that I'd never lose to (Lake Forest) again."

And he didn't.

Barton didn't face the Scouts last year as a junior, but he certainly made up for lost time (and for the bases-loaded walk) this season.

"We've had to face Barton a lot this season and we couldn't put together much of anything against him," Lake Forest centerfielder Jake Bailey said. "He's had our number all season."

Bailey managed to crack the code long enough to get 2 hits in this latest round against Barton, but the rest of the Scouts were pretty well stymied.

"My curveball was working the best today," Barton said. "Coach (Jim) Schurr called the whole game and every time he called for a spot, that's where I threw it."

In fact, Barton was so accurate that Schurr sometimes felt like he was playing his favorite board game instead of calling a baseball game.

"We called a pitch and a location and it was like us playing Battleship," Schurr said. "I could put the pin where I wanted it and Troy was going to do it."

And yet, Schurr actually wondered before the game even began if Barton should be pitching against Lake Forest at all. You know what they say about beating the same team three times in one season.

Not easy.

"Even as good as Troy is, you wonder...do you mix it up and throw someone else just to give them a different look?" Schurr said. "But Troy said, 'I want the ball.' And he's, by far, our best pitcher. Plus, you look silly if you walk away from this with a loss and your best pitcher is sitting on the

bench. He stepped up to the plate for us today."

So did a couple of unlikely heroes.

Sophomores A.J. Schurr and Joey Eichmann didn't let the glare of their first state tournament game throw them off.

In the fourth inning, they smacked back-to-back doubles into deep centerfield to put Libertyville on the board. Schurr drove in Chad Uhler, Eichmann drove in Schurr and then Brandon Fowkes, who entered as a courtesy runner for Eichmann, eventually scored on a pass ball.

That was all the offense the Wildcats would need.

"(Lake Forest starter Jon Grum) was a good pitcher with a lot of off-speed stuff, but we got to him that one inning," said Libertyville shortstop Tyler Schweigert, who went 2-for-3 on the day and also helped the cause by making some amazing, highlight-reel plays at shortstop. "We hit well today and we got great pitching from Troy. He brings a lot of energy and we're always really confident in him."