Colantonio, Conant roll to win over Meadows
Rolling Meadows couldn't capitalize on a pair of early chances against Conant senior right-hander Bill Colantonio.
After the third inning, the Mustangs had no chance against Colantonio in the Cary-Grove Class 4A regional baseball quarterfinal at Conant on Monday afternoon.
Colantonio used a live fastball and nasty curveball to throw a 2-hitter for the fourth-seeded Cougars (12-14) in a 6-0 victory.
"I felt great, probably the best I've felt all year so far," said Colantonio, who made a brief tuneup relief stint Saturday in a 2-1 loss to 31-4 St. Charles North. "I felt I got control of the curveball later in the game but I felt I had the fastball the whole way."
Colantonio threw 71 of his 99 pitches for strikes and had 8 strikeouts and 1 walk. He retired the final 13 hitters to send the Cougars to top-seed and Fox Valley Valley Division co-champion Cary-Grove (22-11) at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
"He was awesome," said Conant coach Jerry Song. "It was fun watching him."
Especially as Conant reversed a 7-0 loss May 5 to No. 5 Meadows (9-22) and sophomore Eric Lowe.
Lowe gave up only 5 hits and 1 walk with 3 strikeouts but 5 errors led to 5 unearned runs. He also singled to lead off the game against Colantonio but two strikeouts left runners at second and third.
"That's pretty much what's been happening this year," said Meadows coach Jim Lindeman, whose team loses only three starters. "We haven't been able to handle good pitchers and he was good today. I thought up to today we had really improved defensively as of late."
Conant gave Colantonio the only run he needed in the first. Jon Altobelli singled and stole the first of his four bases and six for the team and scored on the first of two RBI singles by sophomore shortstop Kyle Gizynski.
The Mustangs threatened in the third when Lowe walked, stole second and took third on Kyle Krzeski's infield single. But after a strikeout, they tried to steal a run and Conant handled it perfectly when second baseman Kevin Carman fired to catcher Joe Belmonte to nail Lowe.
Four errors led to a 4-run third for Conant, which committed only 1 error and got a strong defense from Gizynski.
And Song hopes using his pitchers so no one has had a heavy workload pays off for junior lefty Paul Warble on Wednesday the way it did for Colantonio.
"We can play if we believe - and we're playing with a little more confidence right now," said Song, whose team beat MSL champion Fremd 3-1 last week.
"We've lost games by 1 run (five) all year," Colantonio said. "I think we can go pretty far if we get hot."
BG 4, Zion-Benton 3: Buffalo Grove (19-12) scored the winning run without a hit for its fourth victory in the seventh inning in the last two weeks.
Ryan Nisbet was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to send No. 14 BG to Wednesday's 4 p.m. Libertyville regional semifinal against No. 3 Conant. Jake Monson was also hit and Matt Transon and Tommy Ricciardi walked to load the bases in the seventh after No. 19 Zion tied it with 3 runs in the top of the inning.
Steve Pollakov homered and Andrew Van Wazer had BG's other 2 hits. Jeremy Salzman scattered 6 hits in 6 shutout innings with 6 strikeouts and 3 walks and Cody Iverson (4-1) got the win in relief.
Palatine 5, Wheeling 3: Mike Luschen's tiebreaking double in the bottom of the sixth gave No. 13 Palatine (20-14) the regional quarterfinal win.
Trey Cannon went 3-for-3 and Vince Portera and Luschen had 2 hits. Alex Miramontes got the win in relief as the Pirates won 20 games for the eighth time and advanced to Wednesday's 4 p.m. Mundelein regional semifinal against the fourth-seeded Mustangs.
Peter Durbin had a tying two-out, 2-run double in a 3-run top of the sixth for No. 20 Wheeling (8-23).
Other gamesMiles Osei hit a tiebreaking 2-run homer in the sixth and Scott Plaza threw 4 innings of 1-hit relief as Prospect (20-11) won 20 games for the 13 time in a 4-1 win over Maine South.Hersey 9, South Elgin 2: Chris Polinski hit two 2-run homers and was 3-for-4 with 5 RBI and winner Trevor Haas had 5 strikeouts in 22/3 innings for Hersey (25-9).No. 5 Hersey will play in Thursday's 4 p.m. regional semifinal at Mundelein against No. 11 Highland Park, which beat No. 21 Round Lake on Monday.