Addison Trail upends St. Charles East in regional opener
Putting the ball in play and making the opposition work proved to be the best strategy for Addison Trail's baseball team Monday.
The opportunistic Blazers (16-19) capitalized on a pair of defensive miscues during their 3-run, sixth-inning rally that helped propel them to an 8-6 victory over 16th-seeded St. Charles East (15-18) in the opening round of the Class 4A St. Charles East regional tournament.
"I think one of the keys was us putting the pressure on and continuing to hit the ball," said Blazers coach Paul Parpet, whose team struck out just once in 35 at-bats. "We hit the ball in crucial situations."
Trailing 6-5 entering the sixth, Addison Trail began its comeback with a single from Jason Brzezinski. After Brian Norton advanced the runner to second with a sacrifice bunt, catcher Ismael DeLaCruz walked on 4 pitches to chase Saints starting pitcher Kyle Wiebe (3-7).
Nick Karakosta (3-for-4, RBI) greeted reliever Tommy Konrad with a bloop single to load the bases. An infield error allowed the tying run to cross the plate before Matt Turk lofted a fly ball to right field.
What looked like a sure-thing sacrifice fly was misplayed into a 2-base error in the outfield, allowing 2 runs to score and put the Blazers on top 8-6.
"The higher the ball got in the outfield today, the more it carried," said Parpet. "It was a tough read. We misplayed a couple early on and they misplayed one."
From there, sophomore left-hander Anthony Milazzo (7-4) did the rest, retiring 6 of the final 7 batters for the Blazers, who will face top-seeded Wheaton North (24-5) in Wednesday's regional semifinals.
"We had to go get (starting pitcher Matt) Haas and our sophomore, Anthony Milazzo, came in, kept them right there and did a great job," said Parpet. "He showed a lot of poise.
"We've been playing our best baseball the last two weeks."
The Saints jumped on top 1-0 with an unearned run in the first inning before the Blazers plated a pair of second-inning runs, thanks to Norton's RBI single and a sacrifice fly from DeLaCruz.
St. Charles East came right back with 2 runs of its own in the bottom half of the second before Turk's 2-run, third-inning home run gave the Blazers a 4-3 lead. It was Turk's third home run of the season.
"Our defense was a little shaky in the beginning," said Turk. "We had to hit the ball and we did."
Karakosta's RBI ground-rule double in the fourth made it 5-3 before the Saints staged a 3-run, 2-out rally in their half of the frame. Dan White began the comeback with a double and scored on Drew Vazquez's RBI single to make it 5-4.
Robert Wendt's double left runners at second and third before Ryan Sotern (1-for-3, 3 RBI) delivered a clutch 2-run single to put the Saints on top 6-5.
"The way it was going you never felt out of it even when you got down a little bit," said Saints coach Mark Foulkes. "You thought you could have a chance if you put together a couple quality at-bats. But those last couple innings, we just couldn't get anything going."
The Saints' overall lack of execution - both at the plate and in the field (4 errors) - ultimately proved costly.
"We made a few baserunning mistakes, we didn't get a couple bunts down and we didn't make routine plays," said Foulkes, who coached his final game after announcing his resignation last week. "We've got nobody to blame but ourselves."
During his 6 years as Saints head coach, Foulkes' teams compiled a 122-92-1 record, highlighted by a fourth-place state finish in 2004.
St. Charles North rained out: The second game scheduled for Monday in St. Charles, No. 22 seed Lake Park at No. 11 St. Charles North, was pushed back because of rain.
The North Stars and Lancers will try again at 4:30 p.m. today. The winner advances to play No. 6 Willowbrook at Willowbrook on Thursday, with the winner of that game playing either No. 3 Batavia or No. 18 West Aurora in Saturday's championship game.