Baseball: Harvest, Westminster Christian combination earns trip to Class 2A state tournament
After the merger between Elgin private schools Harvest Christian and Westminster Christian last fall, there was some concern that the new school would field a baseball team.
But after the diamond dust settled and a trip to Springfield in the early spring, the new entity, Harvest-Westminster, has a new focus — the Class 2A state finals in Champaign.
That became official Tuesday afternoon when Harvest-Westminster rolled past Hope Academy 13-6 at the Northwestern Medicine Field Class 2A supersectional in Geneva.
Harvest-Westminster (27-7) will meet Pinckneyville (30-9) Friday afternoon in Champaign in the Class 2A state semifinals.
It’s just another part of the journey for coach Matthew Schulenberg and his team.
“We had some things go on where we had some coaching changes,” said Schulenberg, who was an assistant coach at Westminster.
“We had the merger happen and we had a lot of guys who decided not to play, and two of best kids transferred. We also had a lot of seniors that graduated. But the group that came out and the culture we developed, that’s what we are super proud of.”
Both schools had storied programs before the merger. Westminster won a Class 1A title in 2009 while Harvest Christian had a fourth-place finish in 2019.
Now under a new monicker, one that will change again next year when the school will be renamed River Valley Christian, the baseball program is looking to make more noise.
“We were hoping to play yesterday,” said Schulenberg, whose team was rained out on Monday.
“But we got it in today and we’re thankful. It is amazing. I think the guys we had out here believed that this would be the outcome for our season.”
After taking a 1-0 lead in the first on an RBI double by Ryan St. Louis, Harvest-Westminster fell behind 2-1 after five walks and a throwing error.
Harvest-Westminster left little in doubt after that as every player in the lineup reached base at least twice. All but one player had an RBI and Harvest-Westminster batted around twice.
Harvest-Westminster tied the game in the second on an RBI single by Brian Powers, scoring Ryan Foster. Harvest-Westminster then surged ahead When Powers singled home St. Louis and Tommy Neubert to put his team up for good.
“We had some ups and downs as a team,” Powers said. “But I think we’re a family and came together. I knew we were going to be good. But I didn’t know if we would come together. But we did and I am really happy.”
Harvest-Westminster put the game away over the next two innings. They sent 10 batters to the plate in each of the next two innings, scoring 5 runs in the fourth and 4 runs in the fifth.
“We are pretty excited to go to Champaign and play,” said St. Louis, who had two hits, walked three times and scored three times.
“We were all doing well at the plate today. We had timely hitting and drew a lot of walks. It was a good day all around.”
With the lead, Harvest-Westminster starting pitcher Jameson Rapinchuk settled in. The senior retired 7 in a row before being replaced.
“He is our best guy,” Schulenberg said. “He’s been great all season. And we ride him out as long as we can. And due to the game pushback, we want to save him for state as much as we can.”
Rapinchuk had two hits, along with Neubert and Carter Goetz. Sam Dries had 3 RBI while Luke Bartolome drove in a pair.