Baseball: St. Viator advances to Class 3A regional final

St. Viator's early efforts contributed to a Class 3A baseball regional semifinal victory on Thursday.

Dan Sullivan hit a solo homer in the first inning Wednesday at Marian Central, putting the Lions ahead 1-0 before play was halted in the second inning.

On Thursday, Jack Coney scored in the second inning to put St. Viator up 2-0, and the Lions' pitching held up the rest of the way in a 2-1 victory.

Cole Kmet produced 4⅓ innings of 2-hit pitching to get the victory after Kevin Napoleon started and pitched 2 shutout innings on Wednesday before the game was suspended.

Kmet struck out seven and walked four. Shaun Falbo earned a save by getting a pair of strikeouts.

St. Viator (21-15) will meet the winner of Friday's matchup between Antioch and Woodstock North in a 10 a.m. Saturday regional title game.

Warren 7, Hersey 3: The Huskies generated plenty of action on the basepaths in Gurnee, but the top Stevenson sectional seed did a better job of getting runners across home plate.

Tanner Luke and Luke LaSalvia had 3 hits apiece and Tyler Haffey and Zach Blevins both had 2 hits for Hersey (14-19-1). LaSalvia drove in all 3 Hersey runs.

The Huskies out-hit Warren 11-6l. All of the Blue Devils' runs were unearned as Hersey finished with 8 errors.

Brendan Stonequist allowed 6 hits in 5 innings for Hersey, while Sam LaMotte and Riley Kocen shared time on the mound for Warren.

Matt Burch and Tanner Dyer drove in 2 runs apiece for Warren, which awaits the winner of Friday's 4:30 p.m. Fremd/Deerfield game in a 10 a.m. Saturday regional title matchup.

Glenbrook North 3, Buffalo Grove 0: Creighton commit Michael Oh struck out eight and allowed 8 hits in 6 shutout innings as the Bison saw their season come to an end.

Joey Pinakidis finished 2-for-4 and Eric Mercker had a double for the Bison (17-18).

Jack Vaselaney (4⅔ IP, 2 runs) and Justin Meyer (1⅓ IP, 1 run) shared the pitching duties for Buffalo Grove.

Glenbrook North is scheduled to meet the winner of Friday's Prospect/Lake Zurich semifinal in a 10 a.m. Saturday championship game at Glenbrook North.

Stevenson 5, Glenbrook South 3: The Patriots, seeded No. 3 in the sectional, prevailed in regional semifinal play at Palatine and are scheduled to meet the winner of No. 6 Palatine and No. 11 Lake Forest in a 10 a.m. Saturday finale.

Batavia 10, Conant 3: Glenn Albanese, Jr. tossed a 5-hitter with 9 strikeouts and 3 walks and added a double at the plate to send the Bulldogs into Saturday's Class 4A Glenbard West regional final, where they will play Glenbard East.

Luke Beckmann and Kyle Niemiec each hit home runs for Batavia and Tyler Munoz added 2 hits with a double and 2 RBI.

Mason Sykes had a double, and Jimmy Brady, Nick Roberts and Sykes each drove in 1 run for Conant (18-18).