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Baseball: Maine South's Senior Day a 'sweep' one

It wasn't a typical Senior Day for Maine South's baseball team, but one to remember knowing that several Hawks will be moving on to play in college.

Hawks junior Charlie Schau had a high-bouncing walk-off hit that carried Maine South past Vernon Hills 10-9 in a Central Suburban League crossover game in Park Ridge on Saturday.

Maine South then completed the sweep with an 8-5 win in Game 2.

"It's been a phenomenal year working with the kids, day in and day out," Maine South coach Brian Lorenz said. "We're just trying to make the most of it. That's all we're trying to do and every day matters. It might be raining, but who cares? We got to play baseball and that's great."

Maine South (15-9) started out strong in the opener with a 5-0 lead in the first few innings and 8-4 into the sixth. But Vernon Hills took a 9-8 lead in the top of the seventh until the Hawks were able to score a pair of runs to win it.

"They just kind of had to get it going," Lorenz said of his team. "We had a good lead, but we let (Vernon Hills) hang around. We didn't make the plays to close it out and that's baseball. You have to go out and beat the other team. You just can't hold the ball. You have to make the pitches, you have to make the plays and throws. It was a good comeback."

The Hawks' Alexander Gonzalo had a sacrifice fly to right field that brought home the tying run in the seventh. Then, with runners on first and second base and one out, Schau hit a ball off the edge of the dirt and grass that carried over the third baseman into left field, scoring Luke Kracik with the game-winning run.

"I was looking for something in the zone," Schau said. "I was kind of looking for the fastball to put it in the outfield to win this game. It was kind of strange, it was low and inside. I topped it and it had a ton of top spin and it took a huge hop over the third baseman. I have never seen something like that before. The way that game was going anything could've happened. We just came back and fought back."

Vernon Hills (5-13-1) had won three straight games with a recent win over Stevenson and managed to take the lead in the top half of the inning. The Hawks committed 6 errors over the last four innings.

The Cougars' Alex Nieves had tied the game at 8-8 with an RBI single to right, which brought home Max Brusso. Then, Nieves moved to second and then third base on a throwing error past first base on an attempted pick off. Jake Pieper hit a sacrifice fly to right and Nieves crossed the plate with the leading run.

"It's a good thing from our guys that our mindset is changing a bit," Vernon Hills coach Eric Levin said. "Especially this week the way they've been playing. It's great to see them battle through some adversity here and have a chance to win the ballgame. We took advantage of (Maine South's) mistakes. We've been on the unfortunate side ourselves earlier in the year and now be able to learn from that. It's great to see us come around as a baseball team. Unfortunately, we made a couple of mistakes at the end, which cost us. But we will learn from that and be better."

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