Dundee-Crown upsets South Elgin
The Dundee-Crown baseball team picked the best time to register its first two-game winning streak of the season.
The Chargers entered the postseason as the No. 4 seed in the five-team, Class 4A Larkin regional, sporting a record of 6-23.
After besting No. 5 Elgin 5-3 in Monday's play-in game, the Chargers made it two straight by upsetting No. 1 South Elgin 12-9 in a wild ballgame in Elgin Wednesday.
Dundee-Crown (8-23) will play the winner of today's semifinal between Larkin (18-16) and Streamwood (19-13-2) for the regional title on Saturday at 10 a.m.
"We told our kids at the start of the year that we were going to struggle," said first-year D-C coach Jon Sawyer, who starts just three seniors. "We had to have our seniors come through, and we had to have our young guys play key roles. We thought if that happened, by the end of the year we felt we'd be able to make a run.
"We don't feel we're done yet. Now we'll try to win three games in a row for the first time this year. We'll see."
Early on, the game looked like it would be a blowout in D-C's favor. The Chargers jumped on the Storm for a run in the first, 2 runs in the second and 6 in the third to take a 9-1 lead.
"We had a layoff. I guess I didn't prepare the kids good enough," South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. "We came out and got shellshocked there for the first inning and a half. Our kids didn't know what was going on. Give Dundee-Crown credit. They came out swinging the bat."
The Chargers notched 9 of their 13 hits in the first three innings, including a solo home run by Willy Larsen in the first and a tomahawked 2-run blast in the second by sophomore Nick Spagnola (2-for-3, 4 RBI).
However, South Elgin (16-16-1) rallied for 8 unanswered runs to tie the game 9-9. Charlie Sabo's 2-run double and D.J. Kogut's no-doubt-about-it, 2-run home run highlighted a 5-run third inning.
The Storm scored 3 more runs in the fifth inning, tying the game on a sharp single to left field by Chris Ciccone (4-for-4, 3 RBI).
Undeterred, D-C's three seniors led the way to victory in the top of the sixth inning. Larsen drew a leadoff walk and stole second base. Brendon Schumacher struck out, but the low pitch got past the South Elgin catcher and Schumacher hustled all the way to second. Chris Leifel (2-for-4, 2B) then stepped to the plate and hit a roller up the middle to score both runs and stake the Chargers to an 11-9 lead.
Apparently, D-C's unique hitting drill during the week paid off.
"During practice this week (assistant) coach Hank (Faulkner) brought a bunch of little pumpkins, and we practiced smashing through the ball," Leifel said. "He just set them up, threw a little batting practice, we did a little tee work and we just practiced smashing through the ball. That's exactly what we did today."
The Chargers added an insurance run in the seventh on Jake Romano's RBI single, and junior Zach Vodicka (3-1) pitched scoreless sixth and seventh innings to earn the victory.