Baseball: Waubonsie Valley defeats Wheaton North to clinch share of DVC
Waubonsie Valley's baseball program made its DuPage Valley debut the same way it exited the Upstate Eight.
Once again, the Warriors are conference champions.
Spurred by another strong pitching effort from unbeaten Jason Neville and some late clutch hitting, the Warriors clinched a share of the DVC title with Tuesday's 3-2 victory over Wheaton North in Aurora.
Waubonsie Valley (22-9, 16-7) - which won 11 of its last 12 to secure a piece of its third straight conference title and the school's first DVC team title - can claim the outright championship with a Wednesday win over the Falcons (16-14, 12-11) or a Thursday loss by Naperville Central to Lake Park.
"I feel like I've pitched my best against the good teams, and that's what I needed to do to win," said Neville, who struck out nine and scattered 6 hits while improving to 9-0. "I like being in that pressure position. I feel like I do well in those positions."
After suffering a late April three-game sweep at the hands of Naperville Central, the Warriors looked out of the race at 6-6. Since then, however, Waubonsie Valley has taken off despite playing without injured Western Michigan-bound ace Brandon Petersen.
"The way these guys have stuck together and stuck with it...," said Warriors coach Bryan Acevedo. "These guys have just stepped up and found a way, and I couldn't be more proud of them."
Neville and Falcons starter Casey Becker dueled through five scoreless innings until Wheaton North broke through with the game's first run on Erik Mueller's RBI single in the top of the sixth.
The Warriors answered in the bottom of the inning, tying the game at 1-1 on Joe Spano's run-scoring single. Luke Gregorio provided the margin of victory with a 2-run double.
"This run for us has been huge," Gregorio said. "It definitely means a lot for us to come back after we were swept by Central. We were able to fight through that and come out with the conference title."
The top of the seventh got a little crazy, especially after the Falcons' Pat Leahy narrowed the gap to 3-2 with an RBI groundout.
With runners on first and third and one out, the Falcons tried a double steal. The throw went through to shortstop Nick Santoro, who fired the ball back home to catcher Nick Price.
Price's high tag at the plate got the runner for the second out, and then Neville's ninth strikeout quickly ended the game.
"We didn't execute in a few key situations, and that hurts against a good team like Waubonsie," said Falcons coach Dan Schoessling. "Tough loss today, tough loss yesterday, but I feel like we're playing good baseball."
Follow Kevin on Twitter