Baseball: Metea Valley gets the drop on Neuqua Valley
It's a strange way to end a baseball game, but not so much from the point of view of Metea Valley's Spencer Collins.
He just put his head down and ran as hard as he could with two outs.
In the bottom of the eighth inning of a tie game, Clay Billadeau's sky-high popup dropped among a band of infielders midway between the plate and first base. That allowed Collins to score from second base and give Metea Valley a surprising 3-2 walk-off victory over Neuqua Valley in Aurora.
Collins reached on a single and moved to second on a pickoff attempt. Wildcats pitcher Cooper Avery, who relieved starter Anthony Sterchele in the sixth inning, nearly escaped with back-to-back popups. The second one fell, however, to end Friday's DuPage Valley Conference game.
"We're preached to run out everything because anything can happen," Collins said. "I just ran and it dropped. We got lucky. It's nice to grind out a win like that."
Ethan Schreier singled in a third-inning run and Mitch Rokosz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the fifth inning to give Neuqua Valley (17-5, 8-1) a 2-0 lead. With Sterchele perfect through four, it looked like that'd be plenty of support.
The Mustangs (18-3, 6-3) had other ideas, culminating in the wild finish.
"We've caught some breaks, and this time we didn't catch a break," said Wildcats coach James Thornton. "It's a game of inches and today we came up an inch short. We lost by an inch."
Metea Valley scored twice in the bottom of the fifth, the first run on a passed ball with Bryce Howser on third base. A fielder's choice scored Jason Kirchner to tie it.
Sterchele allowed 1 hit but walked three and hit a batter in the fifth inning. Metea Valley starter Jack Belskis pitched into the fifth inning and was relieved by Jack Cagigal, Matt Bergin and winning pitcher Jake Kmiecik.
"It was a well-played game by both teams," said Mustangs coach Craig Tomczak. "I'm happy we won, even though it's a shame it ended like that."
Twitter: @kevin_schmit