Feece, Vernon Hills find winning margin against St. Viator

Vernon Hills left-hander Tyler Feece had the slimmest margin for error for the first 5 innings of Friday afternoon’s Class 3A Grayslake Central baseball sectional semifinal.

But Feece was backed by an error-free defense and he received an offensive boost on Austin Hagen’s 2-run homer in the fifth inning as second-seeded Vernon Hills topped third-seeded St. Viator 3-0.

Feece (12-2) threw a 4-hitter as the Cougars (30-8) reached the 30-win mark for the first time and a sectional final for the second time. They’ll try to win their first title and avenge an early-season loss when they face top-seeded Grayslake Central (29-9) at 11 a.m. today.

“We’ve worked hard to get where we’re at right now,” Hagen said as the Cougars will try to surpass the 2007 team that fell to Lake Forest a step short of a supersectional.

Feece put his defense to work as his only strikeout came to start the game. He didn’t walk a batter and threw 50 of his 82 pitches for strikes.

“I wasn’t worried about throwing strikes right away,” Feece said. “Our outfielders were able to run balls down and it was a whole team effort on defense.

“We’re a pretty strong defensive team and they ran everything down.”

Vernon Hills coach Jay Czarnecki did have some concern when Feece went to 3-0 counts on three Viator (21-17) hitters in the second inning. But he went to a 3-ball count on only one more hitter.

“Between innings I said, ‘Tyler, you’re not going to last until the end of the game,’” Czarnecki said. “He started working ahead and started changing speeds.

“We started making plays behind him. He got in a mode where he said, ‘Go ahead and hit the ball,’ and he trusted his teammates.”

Center fielder Eric Lang caught a pair of liners and a deep drive by Chris Myjak. Left fielder MJ Crowley made a diving grab in left-center in the third and shortstop Jake Boyer was positioned deep in the hole and took away a couple of hits.

“We had a couple of real web gems,” Czarnecki said.

“They made some great plays,” said Viator coach Mike Manno, whose team also didn’t commit an error as it lost for the third straight year and seventh consecutive time in a sectional semifinal. “I thought it was a good baseball game all the way around.

“We hit the ball pretty good but their kid is a tough pitcher.”

Myjak (5-4) battled out of first- and second-inning jams but a pair of walks led to a two-out RBI single in the third when a liner by Feece (2-for-3) was just out of the reach of a diving Joe Rossi in center field.

Myjak left the bases loaded when left fielder Kevin Patzke recovered from breaking back to race in and rob Ethan McGrew with a diving catch. But Lang’s single in the fifth led to Hagen’s one-out, line-drive blast to left for his second homer.

“With two strikes I was ready to hit it — any strike and anything close,” Hagen said.

Viator’s best threat came in the fourth when Andrew Ferrante lined a one-out double to left and Roy Pettingill (2-for-3) reached on an infield single. Feece got Patzke to fly out to Hagen in right.

“Don’t overthrow it,” Feece said of the jam. “If I overthrow it that’s when I get in trouble. I just try to calm myself down in those situations.”

The only hit the rest of the way was a Rossi leadoff single in the sixth, which was erased by catcher Chris Marras’ pickoff at first.

“Our defense and pitching kept us in the game — at least it gave us a chance,” Manno said. “I thought our kids fought the whole time.”