Baseball: Burlington Central holds off Freeport
Burlington Central relief pitcher Danny Kinney inherited a super-glue-level sticky situation in Genoa Saturday.
The coolheaded junior kept the Rockets from coming apart in an 8-7 victory over Freeport in a Class 3A regional final.
No. 2 Central (23-9) once led 8-2 but that advantage was trimmed to a single run by the time coach Kyle Nelson called on Kinney with one out in the top of the seventh inning and the potential tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position.
"I could feel my heart rate picking up and picking up," Central catcher Colton Wallace said.
Everyone held their breath. Everyone but Kinney.
"I like pressure situations." he said. "Close games are more fun."
Kinney normally mixes in change-ups and curveballs, but he went right at the Pretzels' Nos. 8 and 9 hitters exclusively with fastballs called by Nelson.
He struck out Trevor Thompson looking on a full-count pitch that caught the outside black. It was his 45th strikeout in 28⅓ innings.
Kinney then got ahead in the count against Andrew Simmons and threw his 10th straight fastball to induce a game-ending groundball to shortstop Paddy McKermitt. The Northern Illinois recruit threw to first to seal the Rockets' second straight regional title.
"It's his best pitch," Nelson said of Kinney's fastball. "It moves all over the place and he throws hard. When he commands it, he's tough to hit."
The Rockets advance to face Kaneland (21-8) in a Sterling sectional semifinal on Wednesday at 4 p.m.
Freeport (16-12) jumped to a 2-0, first-inning lead on a 2-run single by sophomore Matthew Chavers off Central starting pitcher Bradley Dinges, who pitched 3 scoreless innings in Wednesday's semifinal win over Sycamore.
Nelson tabbed reliever Tyler Perez to take the mound for the second inning. The left-handed junior used an array of breaking balls to keep the Pretzels scoreless for 4 innings while the offense found its legs against Freeport pitcher Jackson Heimer.
"To ask him to go 5-plus innings was a lot, but he got it done for us," Nelson said of Perez.
The Rockets scored 3 runs in the third inning to take a 3-2 lead. The outburst was keyed by Wallace's run-scoring triple to the right-center field gap. They tied the game on Andrew Griffin's hard-hit single and took the lead on a sacrifice fly by Nick Matijevic.
Central seemingly took control in the fourth inning, thanks to a 3-run home run by Ryan Knowlton. The senior hit a high flyball to left field that got up in the wind and floated.
"I just tried to get a ball in the air to hopefully drive someone in," Knowlton said of his sixth home run this season. "I ended up pulling the ball to the left side and it kept carrying."
The Rockets added a fifth-inning run to make it 8-2. Braden Seyller walked and later scored on a wild pitch. It might have been a much bigger inning had Freeport pitcher Gannon Ruckman not picked off Central runners at second base and first base on consecutive plays to end the inning.
The Pretzels capitalized on that momentum by scoring 4 runs in their ensuing at-bat. The big blow was a 3-run home run over the left-center field fence by Tegan Woods, who jumped on a hanging curve from Perez to shave Central's lead to 8-6.
"Good comeback but we have no one to blame but ourselves with the little misplays in the middle innings that gave them some runs," Freeport coach Shaun Dascher said. "If we could have limited them a little more you never know. The end game could have changed."
Perez notched his sixth strikeout to end the sixth inning, but the Rockets committed consecutive errors behind him to open the seventh. Jalen Plowman cashed in with a run-scoring double to left center to cut the lead to 8-7.
Into that pressurized situation went Kinney.
"I felt fine," he said. "I just played."
The Rockets were limited to 7 hits - 2 apiece from Wallace and Knowlton - but they grinded out 9 walks, 4 of which turned into runs.