Naperville North 9, Naperville Central 2

It's not a good time to be facing Jake Naumann, especially if you're wearing a Naperville Central baseball uniform.

Naperville North's junior ace beat the Redhawks for the third time in a week as the Huskies cruised to a 9-2 cross-town victory in Thursday's Class 4A Naperville North regional semifinals.

The 10th-seeded Huskies (23-10), who jumped to a 7-0 third-inning lead on the No. 8 Redhawks (20-12), advance to Saturday's regional final to play top-seeded Neuqua Valley (28-6).

"Every coach wants to have that type of a lead pitcher," Huskies coach Carl Hunckler said of Naumann, who improved to 10-2 as DuPage County's winningest pitcher. "Here's a kid that pitched 8 innings against them, and I don't even know if he gave up an earned run."

Naumann picked up where he left off after last Thursday's effort against the Redhawks, when he pitched the end of a suspended game and then won the regularly scheduled game to clinch the Huskies a share of the DuPage Valley Conference title.

After Jordan Tassio and Ben Kelsey singled home 3 of Naperville North's 4 runs in the second inning on Thursday, Naumann threw with ease despite dealing with a few jams along the way.

Tom Walsh, Tassio and Kelsey drove in more runs in the third inning to boost the lead to 7-0. John Holm singled home a run for the Redhawks in the bottom of the third, but Naperville North answered with 2 runs in the fifth on Kelsey's fourth hit and an RBI single by Mike Nodzenski.

"With Jake on the mound it only takes a couple of runs and you feel like you're going to win the game," Kelsey said. "So we get ahead, and our motto is to keep scoring because you don't want to give them a chance."

Naumann struck out three, walked three and hit a batter in 6¿ innings. A wild pitch plated Jim McInerney with Naperville Central's second run in the seventh inning. Reliever Aaron Augustyniak coaxed a groundout in relief to end the game.

Pat Kaminska (5-3) took the loss for the Redhawks, who look to a strong future after starting three sophomores and three juniors. The program, though, will no doubt miss graduating seniors like Holm, McInerney, Sean Garbarino and Andy Pucher.

"I am real proud of my guys," said Redhawks coach Bill Seiple. "We're not quite where we want to be, obviously, because we don't like going away from this game disappointed. But I'm real proud of our guys. I'm excited about where this program is."