ECC off to NJCAA nationals for 5th time

They're off to Millington again.

The Elgin Community College baseball team knocked off Carl Sandburg Saturday 9-5 in the Region IV championship game in Moline and with the win advances to the NJCAA World Series for the fifth straight year.

"We're feeling pretty good," said ECC coach Bill Angelo. "The guys are excited about going back to Millington."

ECC (31-14) will open World Series play at USA Baseball Stadium next Saturday at 3 p.m. against either Longview of Missouri or Springfield (Ill.) College. The Spartans finished seventh at last year's national finals.

"That's our goal every year, to get to the World Series," said Angelo. "We had some rough patches in the middle of the season where we weren't playing well but I knew we were capable."

ECC was down 3-0 in the top of the fifth inning Saturday before putting up a 6-spot and taking control of the game. The Spartans finished the day with 13 hits.

"We had threatened every inning up until then so I knew it would just be a matter of time before we'd punch something through," said Angelo. "That big inning changed the momentum and we took over from there."

Matt Revelle (3-for-5, 2B), Ben Vincent (2B), Matt Wietlispach (2-for-5), Kyle Standridge (2-for-4, RBI) and Trevor Rutkowski (2-for-5, 2 RBI) led the ECC offense.

"The first day out here and (Saturday) we hit the ball pretty well and that takes the pressure off the defense and the pitchers," Angelo said.

Jim Van Syckle (7-3) picked up the win on the hill, going 7 innings and allowing 4 hits and 3 earned runs with 4 strikeouts and 4 walks. Bob Diebold came on for his first save, allowing 2 hits with a strikeout.