Lockport 4, Benet 2
Of all the pitches that left Bryan Roberts' magical right hand on Thursday, two he'd like to have back.
That's the heartbreak of baseball.
A 2-run first-inning single and a 2-run sixth-inning triple pushed Lockport to a 4-2 victory over Benet and Roberts in the Class 4A Neuqua Valley sectional semifinals in Naperville.
The third-seeded Porters (22-9) advance to a 10 a.m. Saturday sectional championship game against No. 1 Neuqua Valley (30-6).
"I felt like I had good stuff, just kind of regretting the pitches I threw," said Roberts, who closes a stellar senior season with a 9-2 record. "I felt like I had control over everything I had. They're just a good hitting team and I made a few mistakes."
Two first-inning errors opened the door for Lockport to score a pair of unearned runs on Steve Sabatino's 2-run single. Seventh-seeded Benet (23-14) got the runs right back in the top of the second on Alex Staehely's two-out, 2-run single.
Roberts rolled through the next four innings, retiring 12 straight batters as the teams stayed deadlocked in a 2-2 tie. Then came the decisive sixth inning.
In the top half Benet nearly had runners on first and second with no outs after a bunt single by Connor Reilly, who had 3 of Benet's 6 hits. The runner at second, however, was tagged out after getting caught between second and third base.
A pop out double play followed to end the inning, allowing Lockport to score the go-ahead runs in the bottom of the sixth. Mike Aguilar led off with a double, and after a walk Roberts retired the next two batters.
Porters catcher Joe Martin blooped a ball down the right-field line that fell inside the chalk just out of the reach of diving right fielder Mike Cunningham. Both runners scored on the triple.
"I was doing what we've been doing the whole year and going the other way," Martin said.
Notre Dame-bound Sabatino made his first pitching appearance of the season in the seventh and notched the save for reliever Brandon Duplessis (4-1) by striking out the side. Starter Jon Cisna pitched the first 5½ innings.
"We had six strikeouts, but I think we had still had great approach all the way through the game," said Lockport coach Steve Stanicek. "We knew Roberts was going to be a quality guy, and we knew that if we were going to chase a lot of his high fastballs we weren't going to be very successful."
Illinois-bound Roberts, one of only two starting seniors for Benet, ends his season and high school career with 133 strikeouts in 70¿ innings.
"They got the huge two-out hit in the sixth, and that was it," said Benet coach Jeff Bonebrake. "They beat our best, and we have nothing to be ashamed of."