Baseball: St. Charles North sweeps St. Charles East
As St. Charles North posed for a team photo following the finale of its three-game series with St. Charles East on the Saints' home field Wednesday, one of the North Stars shouted, "Be sure to get the scoreboard."
No doubt that scoreboard told the story, an 11-1 North Stars victory to complete a series sweep and provide the exclamation point on a dominating romp through the Upstate Eight Conference this spring.
"Good teams take two out of three, great teams sweep," North Stars coach Todd Genke said. "It's going to be a fun bus ride home."
St. Charles North (27-4, 22-1) held the Saints to 2 runs in the 3 games, outscoring them 22-2.
"They are clearly the better team in the series here," Saints coach Len Asquini said. "They showed it. They took advantage of our miscues. Hats off to them because this was rough for us to sit here and watch. There's no question they are living up to their billing."
John LeGare will have a special memory of that scoreboard. The North Stars' senior right fielder launched a solo home run that clanged off the scoreboard in left field to cap the North Stars' 3-run third inning that put them ahead to stay.
LeGare stayed late for extra batting practice after Tuesday's game, and that work paid off when he turned on the first pitch he saw from Matt Breidigan.
"I was weak on my top hand," LeGare explained. "All series they have been pitching me the up-and-in fastball and I haven't been able to handle it, popping up to left field.
"I heard it hit. I wasn't sure if it was the fence or the scoreboard."
St. Charles East (21-12, 16-8) had a chance to strike first against Tim Hasto but left Corbin Marucco - who singled leading off the game for 1 of the Saints' 2 hits - at third base in the first inning, then had a runner thrown out at the plate in the second.
Brendan Joyce, who went 3-for-4 with 2 doubles and 3 runs scored, started the North Stars' 3-run third with a single. Luke Corcoran reached on an error, and after Zach Mettetal's fielder's choice, the Saints threw into center field trying to get Mettetal stealing second which allowed Joyce to score. Mettetal scored on a wild pitch, then LeGare made it 3-0 with his homer.
After the Saints plated their only run on a double steal in the fourth set up by an error, the North Stars broke the game open with 2 runs in the fifth, 4 in the sixth and 2 more in the seventh.
The big hits included a 2-run triple by LeGare, a run-scoring triple from Cochran, and pinch hitter Sean Krueger's RBI single in the seventh.
Hasto limited the Saints to 2 hits and no walks in his 6 innings before Christian Sidoti struck out the side - all looking - in the seventh.
"I was behind in counts so I had to work the opposite way and pitch to contact," said Hasto, who credited his 2-seam fastball as his best pitch in improving to 5-0. "I just focused on throwing strikes."
LeGare joined Joyce with 3 hits for the North Stars who have been able to keep rolling despite losing ace Tyler Mettetal to Tommy John surgery.
"To be able to sweep a team like this feels great," Genke said. "Especially after losing Tyler a lot of our kids were looking around to see who was going to step up next. Up and down the lineup there's not a lot of easy outs."
The Saints will try to regroup in the postseason next week to eventually earn another shot at St. Charles North in the sectionals.
"We have to do a lot of things better than what we did," Asquini said. "It's all aspects of it."