Wheaton North is back in a familiar spot

The more things change, the more they stay the same for Wheaton North's baseball team.

Despite a near-complete overhaul of their lineup from the previous two years, the Falcons are back in the sectional championship game for a third straight season.

Wheaton North advanced from the Class 4A St. Charles East sectional semifinals with Thursday's 7-6 nail-biting victory over Lake Park. The second-seeded Falcons (28-9) will play No. 5 St. Charles East (27-11) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday for a spot in the supersectional.

Falcons ace Mike Coduto (8-1) gutted out the complete-game win, but it wasn't easy. Even though Wheaton North led from the second inning on, No. 6 Lake Park (21-17) played relentless baseball.

Trailing 7-5 heading to the seventh inning, Lake Park started the inning with back-to-back singles that led to a fielder's choice and an RBI single by Matt Kaiser to narrow the gap to 7-6. After a flyout, Coduto ended the game with a strikeout looking, stranding runners at first and second base.

"It was one of those days where you just do enough to get a win," said Wheaton North coach Dan Schoessling. "It's not like we thought it was going to be easy. They've got a very good hitting team, and even when we had a 4-run lead it just didn't feel like it."

Wheaton North smacked 14 hits, 12 in the first four innings as the Falcons built leads of 4-0 and 7-3. Nick Barry started the scoring with a 2-run homer in the second inning. Dale Trimble and Mike Small, who went 4-for-5, added third-inning RBI singles.

Lake Park rallied in the top of the fourth on back-to-back homers - a 2-run shot by Kaiser followed by a solo homer by Jake McNamara. A double play took the steam out of the rally, however, keeping the score at 4-3.

"It could have been easy for us to pack it in early," said Lake Park coach Dan Colucci. "Wheaton North hit the ball. There's a couple plays here and there that if we could have kept them from scoring a run or two, it might have been a different game."

Wheaton North got the 3 runs right back in the bottom of the fourth when Reece Butler doubled in 2 runs and Barry added an RBI double. Lake Park pulled within 7-5 on a pair of unearned runs in the sixth inning.

"Coach talked to us all year about putting teams away late in games," Barry said. "As you could see today, it was still close towards the end so we just had to keep swinging and keep going at it."