Baseball: Cary-Grove, Crystal Lake South share FVC Valley title
Seventeen baseball games over six weeks were not enough to decide an outright champion in the Fox Valley Conference's Valley Division.
Leaders Cary-Grove and Crystal Lake South entered their respective Wednesday FVC Valley finales tied for first place and each won a pressure-packed game to share the title.
The Trojans rode the right arm of red-hot pitcher Matt McCumber to a 3-0 victory at Jacobs a day after they dropped a 1-run decision at Hampshire to fall into a first-place tie with the Gators.
McCumber (8-3) won his fifth straight decision by shutting out Jacobs on 4 hits, an impressive feat for the junior against a veteran team that was expected to contend for the title itself after last season's third-place finish in Class 4A. The Northern Illinois recruit struck out 9 and walked 2 in a 101-pitch outing four days after he threw 104 pitches in a win over CL South.
Offensively, Cary-Grove No. 8 hitter Dallas McDonough's second-inning double off Jacobs left-hander Brad Demkovich (4-1) drove in fellow senior Dom Calamari from first base with the only run McCumber needed.
Nevertheless, the Trojans added a third-inning insurance run on Mark Smith's RBI groundball and another in the seventh when Tyler Pennington singled to drive in Colin Walsh.
Cary-Grove (22-10, 12-5), which won the FVC Valley outright in 2015, won its 10th title in 38 seasons of Fox Valley Conference competition, its ninth under 29-year coach Don Sutherland. It marks the 10th time a FVC baseball title has been shared.
"The expectations at Cary-Grove are always championship no matter what sport," said Pennington, who went 2-for-3. "We just wanted to follow up what we did last year and really play well this year. And we have."
Simultaneously, 17 miles to the north at Petersen Park in McHenry, Crystal Lake South was making an improbable comeback against McHenry in an eventual 6-3 victory.
After falling behind 3-0 against Louisville-bound pitcher Bobby Miller, CL South (24-5, 12-5) pulled within 3-2 on Tyler Carlson's 2-run, fourth-inning single.
The Gators later preyed on the McHenry bullpen. Michael Swiatly's sixth-inning double drove in Nick Wolski to knot the score at 3-3.
CL South scored 3 seventh-inning runs to pull away. Griffin Bright led off with a single and scored from first base on Nick Van Witzenburg's one-out double to stake his team to its first lead. The rally made a winner of pitcher Tim Siesennop, who held the Warriors to 1 hit in 4 innings of scoreless relief.
The win secured the Gators' seventh league or division title. The FVC Valley title is their third in five years under ninth-year coach Brian Bogda.
"The story of our season has been playing as a team," Bogda said. "It hasn't been just one or two guys. It's been different people each and every day. That's what's pretty cool about this team: they're not necessarily the biggest guys in the world but they are scrappy, they put the ball in play and put pressure on the other team to make plays. It's fun coaching teams like that. They're all buying in toward the same goal and everything's clicking."