Baseball: Fun playoff run ends for Maine West
The dream ended for Maine West on Wednesday.
The 14th-seeded Warriors, who had a losing record but were coming off their first regional title since 2004, fell to Fenwick 7-3 in the Class 4A sectional semifinal at Kerry Wood Cubs Field in Chicago.
Fenwick (25-12) will meet New Trier in Saturday's sectional final.
For Maine West (12-21) it was a great run that ended with a disappointing finish.
"These guys bought in about a month ago and have been playing awesome ever since," said Maine West coach Mike Randazzo, whose team knocked off second-seeded Oak Park and seventh-seeded York to win their regional. "We had a couple of seniors who did not want to go out losing 20 games and then be one and done in the playoffs. They had a nice get-together and talked it over and things worked."
Maine West had an opportunity in the first inning, but the Warriors failed to cash in.
Jacob Cabral walked, Cory Sholler singled and Nick Stone was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out. But the next two Warriors hitters struck out to end that threat.
It didn't take Maine West long to bounce back from that disappointment. Kyle Roscoe, who had never homered in his career, drilled a pitch over the right-field fence - fittingly, in the direction of Roscoe Avenue - to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead.
"Not hitting a home run all year was a drag," Roscoe said. "Especially considering I am 6-foot-3. I got a fastball in and I don't know what came over me."
Maine West wasn't done. Alec Paschos had reached on a fielder's choice. Courtesy runner Matt Fairhead advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Cabral and scored on Marty Mustari's sharp single to right to make it 2-0.
The Warriors extended their lead in their next at-bat. Stone reached second when a Fenwick outfielder dropped a deep fly. Stone then came on to score on Jeff Mustari's single and Maine West was up 3-0.
"We all thought this could happen," Roscoe said. "We could all believe. The whole team was picked up in a wholehearted way."
Fenwick began to put an end to those feelings when they tallied a 3-spot in their half of the third. Jack Grace doubled home a pair for the Friars and then scored on a single by Sherman Martin.
Fenwick then pulled away in the sixth, scoring 4 times as the Friars finally took advantage of the 10 walks they received in the game.
"The walks hurt us," Randazzo said. "We were 9-20 and we got there with walks, walks, walks. But it sort of came back tonight."
Sam Kindle, who went 4 strong innings for the Warriors said he and his teammates knew they had a nice playoff run in them.
"Our record may have not showed it, but we knew that we were a better team than our record showed," Kindle said. "This was our chance. We just showed everyone who we were. It would have been nice to win the game, but it was a fun ride."
Jeff Mustari said strong teamwork by the Warriors carried them down the stretch.
"I wish we could have gone further," Mustari said. "I knew when we began to play together as a team we could make it this far."