Bizarre play doesn't go Warren's way
A loss to St. Rita, a baseball coach can accept.
It's a play during the fifth inning of Monday's game at Benedictine University that Warren coach Clint Smothers found unacceptable.
Smothers was still fuming about a reversed blown call even after St. Rita's 7-3 win in the opening round at the IHSBCA Phil Lawler Summer Classic in Lisle.
With a Blue Devils run already in and two out in the fifth with St. Rita ahead 4-1, Warren's Jeff Johnson lined a bases-loaded single to center to score Tim Bodine.
On the throw to the plate, St. Rita catcher Brian Sicher made a swipe tag on Warren's Jon Frericks, who was ruled out. But on the tag the ball trickled out of Sicher's glove, and St. Rita head coach Mike Zunica - illegally - picked the ball up and flipped it to the catcher.
The umpire didn't see the maneuver and upheld the third out with Warren trailing 4-2. That set off a heated argument on the field.
"I don't know how two umpires can be on the field," Smothers said, "and not see what happened. The ball clearly went over to their dugout. Their coach had to come out and apologize for what he did. He knew he was wrong. He had to admit what he did to change the call."
Zunica finally fessed up to the flip before the next half-inning, Frericks was ruled safe and the inning continued with St. Rita ahead 4-3.
"The ball just ended up in my lap," Zunica said, "and my instincts took over. I tried to get my team off the field before they could see what happened. The umpires wanted to know in between innings what had happened. At that point the right thing to do was to come clean."
Smothers was denied in his request for a dead ball to be ruled, a call that would have brought in the tying run.
"He touched it - end of play," Smothers said. "It should have been 4-4. (The umpire) told me 'we're giving you the call. Don't get greedy.'"
St. Rita's Mark Payton - the Mustangs' fourth pitcher of the inning - got a strikeout to leave the bases loaded.
The Mustangs (16-2) tacked on 2 runs in the top of the sixth to make it 6-3 on Shane Conlon's two-out, 2-run double. St. Rita broke up a scoreless dual between Warren's Zach Schneider and John Starcevich with 4 two-out runs in the top of the fifth. Stefano Belmonte and Anthony Andres drove in a pair of runs each in a rally started by an error, walk and hit batter.
"We were feeling a big inning coming," Conlon said.
Schneider, who struck out four, held the Mustangs hitless through 3 impressive innings.
"Schneider's going to be great for us," Smothers said. "He's done a nice job this summer. His fastball runs a ton and it's sneaky fast."
Johnson went 3-for-4 and Frericks 2-for-4 for Warren (26-4), which plays Carmel at 10 a.m. today at North Central. St. Rita will play Downers Grove South in the 12:30 p.m. game.
"They have a great program, I think highly of their coaches," Smothers said, "but you hate to come all the way down here and work your butt off all summer and have something like this happen to your kids."