Hersey's Huber notches win No. 300
Better late this season than waiting until next season for Hersey baseball coach Bob Huber to get his 300th career victory.
It wasn't easy as the host Huskies (18-18), the 14th seed in the Barrington sectional, had to survive a scary seventh to beat No. 19 Waukegan 4-3 in Monday's Class 4A Lake Zurich regional quarterfinal.
Huber, who took over for Harvey Foster in 1995, is now 300-227 in 15 years as Hersey's head coach. Huber gave credit to current and past assistants such as Kevin Kelley, Tim Lazzarotto, Tom Hamman, Pete Drevline, Tim Dykes and Dino Moran for helping him reach the milestone.
"You have to have good players and the kids work hard and put up with me," Huber said with a laugh. "We've had good players and hopefully we'll try to go get 301 on Wednesday."
Getting to that matchup with third-seeded Mundelein (25-8) at 4:30 p.m. wasn't easy.
Waukegan scored twice in the top of the seventh and had the tying run at third when Chris James finished a complete-game 6-hitter with a flyout to left. James threw 96 pitches and had 3 strikeouts and 2 walks and allowed 2 earned runs.
Chris Polinski doubled and came around on Pat Hyde's sacrifice and a wild pitch for Hersey's first run. A Jake Knauss homer broke a 1-1 tie in the third and Mike Toljanic's single set up a 2-run fifth.
Hersey junior Steve Danielak (9-2) is scheduled to start Wednesday and will try to break the single-season school record for wins by Rob Quarnstrom in 1993.
"I think he gives us a good shot," Huber said. "Obviously Mundelein is a very tough club from a very tough conference (North Suburban Lake)."
Hoffman 2, Glenbard West 1: Hoffman Estates, the 19th seed in the St. Charles North sectional, squeezed out the victory in the sixth inning at No. 14 Glenbard West.
Eric Smoy (3-for-3) squeeze bunted in the tiebreaking run and Mike Kiviranta escaped a second-and-third, no-out jam to put Hoffman (11-21) in Wednesday's 4:30 p.m. semifinal of its 4A regional against No. 2 Elk Grove (19-16).
"I told my assistant (Steve Loh), it's been such an up-and-down season it's nice to still be in the mix," said Hoffman coach Todd Meador.
Kiviranta threw a 7-hitter with 3 strikeouts and 2 walks. The junior righty got a foul out, short fly to left and a groundout to leave the trying and go-ahead runs in scoring position in the sixth.
"He made the right pitches when he needed to and made some really good pitches in the bottom of the sixth," Meador said.
Mike Eisele doubled to start Hoffman's sixth and Mike Norman grounded to the right side to move pinch runner Kyle Sertich to third. Smoy then dropped his suicide squeeze bunt for a hit.
"The time was right and I certainly had confidence in him putting the bunt down," Meador said.
Palatine 6, Deerfield 0: Dan Huenecke threw a 2-hitter and didn't allow a runner past second base as Palatine (17-17), the No. 15 seed in the Barrington sectional, ended a five-game losing streak.
Huenecke threw 55 of his 80 pitches for strikes and had 7 strikeouts and 1 walk as the Pirates advanced to Wednesday's 4:30 p.m. regional semifinal at Fremd against No. 2 Stevenson (25-6).
"He just really established strike one," Palatine coach Paul Belo said of Huenecke. "He absolutely pounded the (strike) zone."
Huenecke also benefitted from errorless defense and an efficient offense led by Mike Luschen, who went 4-for-4 with an RBI double in the sixth.
Jim Smearman had a two-out RBI single in the first and Joe Campe (2-for-3) had an RBI single in the fourth. Palatine scored 3 runs in the fifth without a ball leaving the infield as Trey Cannon and Dan Haze bunted for hits, Luschen had a single, Smearman had an RBI single and Tom Galvan and Byron Skinner drove in runs on force-play grounders.
Schaumburg 9, Proviso West 3: Dave Compitello allowed 1 earned run and had 6 strikeouts and no walks in 5 innings for Schaumburg (16-14), the 12th seed in the St. Charles North sectional.
"'Comp' threw very well," said Schaumburg coach Paul Groot. "He had a good fastball and they (Proviso West) have a couple of hitters."
Vito Perrino and Chris Kelly had 2 hits and 2 RBI and Mike and Matt Mistrata had 2 hits each for Schaumburg. Kyle Meyer (11-1) threw an 18-pitch, two-inning tuneup for his start at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the Geneva regional semifinal against No. 5 Conant (18-11).
Barrington 12, Niles West 4: In a regular-season nonconference game, Gus Handler had a 3-run double as Barrington (17-13) scored 10 runs in the top of the seventh. Tyler Tureck got the victory.