Cary-Grove rolls to regional crown
Solid pitching, flawless defense and a potent offensive attack.
All cylinders for second-seeded Cary-Grove were clicking in a 9-0 whitewashing of fourth-seeded Prairie Ridge in the championship game of the Class 4A McHenry baseball regional held at Petersen Park Saturday afternoon.
“I have no complaints,” said Cary-Grove coach Don Sutherland. “We played good baseball in all areas of the game. Kevin (Weber) pitched a great game, we played great defense and we swung the bats. We have been a little tentative on defense this year, but we made all the plays today. This team has very lofty goals but we need to take small steps. PR has been hot lately. So, this is a good win against a good team.”
The Trojans (27-9) advance to the DeKalb sectional where they will play Fox Valley Conference Valley Division foe Dundee-Crown Thursday at 4 p.m. The Chargers won the Huntley regional with 1-0 victory over the host Red Raiders.
Trojan hurler Kevin Weber, who picked off two Wolves in each of the first 2 innings, blanked PR in seven innings while scattering 7 singles. The Trojan senior struck out 6 while walking 2.
“I was missing up early in the game because of nerves,” said Weber. “The pickoffs really helped the first two innings. Coach P (Ryan Passaglia) calls the pickoff plays, we just have to execute them. Once I settled down my changeup and fastball were working and I got my curve over. It was nice to get the 6 runs early. It is so much easier to pitch with the lead. The defense was awesome. We had several Web Gems today. Matt Byrne made an awesome play and Nick Richter is a brick wall at third base. Nothing gets through him.”
The Trojans seized control of the game in the third by jumping on PR starter Lucas Keller for 6 runs.
The key hits for Cary-Grove were 2-run singles by Weber and Alex Wians and an RBI single from Matt Panek.
The Trojans added a run in the fourth on another RBI single from Panek and scored two insurance runs in the fifth courtesy of a solo homer from Tyler Lau and am RBI single by Matt Byrne.
Richter, Panek (2 RBI) and Wians (2 RBI) collected 2 hits each for the winners.
Adam Enwiya had 2 hits for Prairie Ridge (14-21).