Baseball: Mundelein marches past Huntley, into 4A semis

In the sectional championship game, Brendan Murphy got the job done with his arm.

On Monday night in Schaumburg, the Mundelein junior made a difference with his bat.

Batting third in the lineup and playing first base, still resting his arm from pitching the Mustangs to a sectional title win over Warren on Saturday, Murphy put Mundelein on the board early in the Class 4A supersectional against Huntley. He drove in the first two runs of the game with a single to center field in the third inning.

Mundelein went on to defeat Huntley for the Schaumburg supersectional championship at Boomers Stadium, 8-0.

Murphy, who has already committed to Arizona State, went 1-for-2 on the night.

"I was just trying to be aggressive," Murphy said. "In my first at-bat (in the first inning), I fell behind. In my second at-bat, we had runner's on and all I was trying to do was put the ball in play and hopefully good things would happen and it did. It worked.

"And we didn't stop from there. Our hitting is contagious. Everyone just hits and hits. We just hit the ball hard and everyone was ready to go."

The Mustangs now advance to the IHSA state finals in Joliet. It's the third state finals appearance for Mundelein, which also advanced in 1978 and 2002. The 2002 team, also under the direction of current head coach Todd Parola, now in his 22nd season, placed fourth.

Mundelein (30-9) will face St. Charles North, a 4-3 winner over New Trier in the first Boomers Stadium superectional game of the night, at 5 p.m. Friday at Silver Cross Stadium.

The winner of that game will play for a state championship on Saturday (5 p.m.) against the winner of the other semifinal between Providence Catholic and Plainfield North.

"This means a lot," Murphy said. "Since seventh grade, our coaches were always saying that our class (the juniors) was the golden team because we won two (grade school) state championships.

"With the seniors and our chemistry, and how close we are together, we got it done and it means the world to us. We came here to get it done and we did it."

Mundelein finished with 3 hits in that can-of-worms third inning, and the hits kept coming. So did the runs.

In the fourth inning, the Mustangs rolled up 3 hits and scored a run on a single by leadoff hitter Nick Stricker. That flurry knocked out Huntley starter and ace Adam Smylie.

Mundelein added 3 more runs in the fifth on 2 hits. Drew Breitenreiter drove in a run with a single and then catcher Reid Rubio crushed a double to left field. That brought in 2 runs.

Two more insurance runs crossed in the sixth inning when Brett Parola doubled into left field.

The Mustangs, who went through four Huntley pitchers, finished with 11 hits on the game.

Huntley, which was forced to play twice on Monday, could muster only 3 hits.

Due to rain on Saturday, Huntley's sectional title game against Grant was moved to Monday morning. The Red Raiders slipped by Grant, 5-4 and then hopped on a bus to Schaumburg.

Huntley had a tough time cracking Mundelein starter Will Michalski, who went the distance. He finished with 8 strikeouts and allowed only 2 walks.