Kaneland wins Class 3A state title
There's no I in Kaneland, but there is one in state champion.
The Knights won the Class 3A state baseball championship 11-3 over Oak Forest on Saturday at Silver Cross Field in Joliet, doing it the way they have all year.
Total team effort.
That goes for the mound where Drew Peters and Kyle Davidson teamed up to hold Oak Forest to 3 runs — half of what the Bengals (27-7) had been averaging in the playoffs.
It most certainly goes for the plate. The Knights banged out 24 hits in 2 state games against some of the best pitching they've seen all year, and they got production up and down the order. On Saturday it was No. 8 hitter Brian Dixon's turn going 3-for-4 with 4 RBI.
And it goes for the field. The Knights turned an early double play to escape trouble, then another double play to end the game — just like they ended Friday's semifinal with a twin killing. They played error free baseball Saturday and had 1 non-impact error in 2 state games while their opponents booted the ball 6 times.
“Our team was solid and deep and we had a lot of confidence,” Kaneland coach Brian Aversa said. “Can't ask for much more than that. Hats off to our guys for hitting the snot out of the ball these last two games. We played two great teams this weekend and we were interested to see how we stacked up.”
They stacked up just like they have throughout this remarkable postseason. Never a regional champion until two weeks ago, just a No. 2 seed in that regional, Kaneland (26-10) got red hot at the right time to win the school's first state championship since the 1997 and 98 football teams.
“I never saw this coming,” senior first baseman Sam Komel said. “We were struggling and I thought we hit a wall and peaked too early. We were just starting to peak. We got some chemistry going and 13 in a row, that is pretty spectacular.”
It took a team to become state champion, and the Knights certainly celebrated as a team in the infield after the ball landed in Komel's glove for the final out. Players dove on top of each other creating one huge pile of delirious Knights, who ended the season with 13 straight wins after sitting at 13-10 on May 10.
“It doesn't feel real yet,” senior center fielder Joe Camiliere said. “It feels like we have to play again tomorrow. It doesn't seem like the end. We got on a good roll, that's the biggest thing. I think we played our best baseball today.”
The throng of Kaneland faithful that made up much of the 1,177 at Silver Cross Field stood and cheered behind Kaneland's first-base dugout as coaches and players were first given state champion medals and then went to hoist the state championship trophy.
You can bet the celebration will continue long after Saturday.
“I couldn't ask for anything more. It's a dream come true. I love it,” said Dixon, hitting .215 entering state but he delivered the game-tying hit Friday and followed with an even bigger game Saturday. “Our goal for the year was a regional championship. This is icing on the cake basically.
“Everything clicked. We had fun at practice, we stayed relaxed the whole time. We've been playing together about 8 years so things have been clicking really well.”
Like the Knights did in their Friday semifinal win with a 4-run sixth inning, they broke the championship game open late. This time it was a 6-run fifth inning that turned a tight 3-2 game into a countdown for that final state-clinching out.
Twelve players came to the plate in the fifth inning. Seven had hits. Oak Forest used 3 different pitchers.
It didn't hurt to have a little luck. Bobby Thorson lined a check-swing double to right field to drive in the first run. Komel followed with a 2-run single through the hole for a 6-2 lead.
Jake Razo dropped an RBI double just inside the left-field line, then Dixon drove an RBI single to the opposite field for an 8-2 lead. Tyler Heinle's RBI single down the left-field line capped the inning.
“Our pitching and our defense has really sparked our offense,” Aversa said. “We make a double play and we come in pumped and we are hitting the heck out of the ball and defense carried over to offense carried back to defense. It was really special to see the guys putting things together this weekend.”
Kaneland added 2 runs in the sixth before Oak Forest scored once in the seventh. That was far from enough as Davidson, who pitched the final 3 innings for the save in relief of Drew Peters (4 innings, 2 runs, 0 walks, 3 strikeouts), induced a grounder to his replacement at shortstop — Trevor Heinle — for the celebration-starting double play.
Kaneland took a 1-0 lead in the first. Camiliere doubled with two outs and scored on Thorson's single up the middle.
Oak Forest got its only two runs in the fourth. A single and hit batter put Peters in trouble with two outs.
Designed hitter Jason Hine wound up winning a marathon at-bat, fouling off 7 pitches of a 12-pitch at-bat before lining a 3-2 pitch into shallow right. Razo, who has made game-saving plays in right field this year, nearly had another, diving to initially catch the sinking liner. But he couldn't quite keep control of the ball and both runs scored to give the Bengals a 2-1 lead.
Kaneland answered with 2 runs in its half of the fourth to regain a 3-2 lead. Oak Forest starter Kyle Linares (4 1/3 innings, 7 runs, 9 hits, 5 strikeouts) struck out Kaneland's top two RBI men Thorson and Komel on 62 mile an hour off-speed pitches. It looked like the Knights might strand Camiliere in scoring position.
Drew French drew a walk, and Razo came through with a shot past the shortstop into left field to score Camiliere and tie the game 2-2. Dixon followed with another line drive, this one over the third baseman's head to score Razo for a 3-2 lead.
Razo and Dixon, the team's No. 7 and 8 hitters, combined to go 5-for-7 on Saturday with 6 RBI and 8-for-15 in the 2 state games.
That was a major theme of Kaneland's state title run, one all the Knights fans on hand Saturday and who have cheered them on in the postseason from Sycamore to Rochelle to Rock Island to Joliet, will remember: Everyone on Kaneland teaming up to win games.
“They (Oak Forest) were a great team, they put the ball in play and put a lot of pressure on us,” Camiliere said. “They had some real good hitters. We just kept battling. We said before the game why not play our best game today. I think we did. The plays we needed to make we made them. Good pitching, good defense and we got the bats going today.”