St. Edward takes next step forward
The youthful St. Edward baseball team took an important developmental step in closing out North Boone for a 9-5 win in a Class 2A regional play-in game at Wing Park in Elgin Monday.
Junior left-handed reliever Jacob Koehring struck out left-handed hitting Josh LaDuke with the bases loaded in the top of the seventh to seal a victory that improved the Green Wave to 18-16, which means the stated team goal of finishing above. 500 this season has been met.
“That’s very motivating for them going forward,” said first-year St. Edward coach Tim Dovichi, whose starting lineup against North Boone (10-22) included three juniors, three sophomores and two freshmen. “They’ve achieved that and they’ve seen they can succeed.
“Now the bar gets raised going into the playoffs. We still haven’t reached our potential, which I’ve been trying to drive into them. There’s still more there, still more fight.”
St. Edward advances to Thursday’s regional semifinal at Richmond-Burton to face the team that ended its season a year ago in a regional final: Westminster Christian (18-11). St. Edward defeated Westminster 4-3 last Thursday at Trout Park.
The Green Wave jumped to a 7-0 lead against the Vikings through four innings. Senior Luke Duffy highlighted a 3-run first inning by yanking a curveball over the left-center field fence for a 2-run homer, which staked 14-year-old freshman left-hander Jake LaFrenz to a 3-0 lead.
“The past few weeks I’ve definitely been working that first pitch,” said Duffy, who also tripled and drove in 3 runs. “I think my plate vision has gotten a lot better.”
Though St. Edward scored in each of the first four innings, it could have been a lot worse. The Green Wave left the bases loaded in the first, third and fourth innings.
That left the door open slightly for North Boone, which was able to creep within 7-5 with 2 runs in the fifth and 3 in the sixth. LaFrenz allowed 5 runs (3 earned), on 6 hits in 6 innings. He struck out 7 and walked 3.
“I had it at the beginning and I lost it a little bit at the end,” said LaFrenz (6-2). We came up with some big hits early on, we had some trouble later on, and we came back and got the runs we needed to close out the game.”
The Green Wave tacked on 2 insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth with the help of North Boone’s eighth error of the game. Ryan Nudd walked and later scored on a wild pitch with the squeeze play on. Antonio Domel scored on a wild pitch shortly thereafter to make it 9-5.
“We gave a lot of easy errors away and a ton of unearned runs,” North Boone coach,” Deon Dinsmore said. “We’re young and we’ve got a long way to go.”
Koehring relieved LaFrenz in the seventh and got two quick outs, but 3 straight singles by Dylan Corson, Vic Catella and Zach Horton brought the tying run to the plate. Koehring froze LaDuke with a fastball to end the game.
With their season goal achieved, the young Green Wave will try to go one step further by knocking off Westminster Christian, which boasts senior pitcher Ryan Perez (7-1, 0-98 ERA).
“It’s going to be a battle,” said Duffy, a former teammate of Perez’s for three seasons with the Elgin Rippers. “We have to quicken up our bats a bit, try to get one of those fastballs. (Perez) is a good pitcher. He’s going to bring it all, I know, and we’re going to bring it all, too.”