Baseball: Mundelein ends Fremd's string of upsets with wild finish
After beating No. 1-seeded Libertyville and No. 5-seeded Warren, No. 8-seeded Fremd was hoping to keep its Cinderella story of a season alive when the Vikings faced No. 2 Mundelein for the Class 4A Stevenson baseball sectional championship Saturday morning.
Outstanding pitching has been a trademark of the 2022 postseason tournament as the Fremd (17-14) advanced to the title game with a 2-0 win in 10 innings while Mundelein (27-5) got to the finals with a narrow 1-0 victory over Barrington.
The ending to Saturday's championship game turned out to be a real shocker for the Vikings. The Mustangs incredibly overcame a 1-0 deficit to pull off a 2-1 victory in eight innings over devastated Fremd.
With the victory, Mundelein advances to Monday's supersectional against Glenbrook South (19-12) at Schaumburg's Wintrust field beginning at 7:30 p.m.
The score was deadlocked at 0-0 in the top of the eighth when Yuhki Yamada started a Vikings rally with a one-out bunt single. He moved to second base when teammate Bo O'Brien was hit by a pitch by Mundelein reliever Caden Morton, who wound up getting the win.
An RBI single by pinch-hitter Mikey Gilski drove in Yamada with the go-ahead run. But Fremd still needed to get three more outs to advance to the supersectionals.
Fremd left-handed starter Tommy Plizga (11 strikeouts) walked the first batter. Daniel Pacella reached on a fielder's choice and was replaced by pinch-runner Lucas Ganan.
Fremd reliever Dean Rokkas came in and gave up an infield hit to Tommy Stricklin to put runners on first and second. Rokkas tried to pick Ganan off second base, but his errant throw went into center field putting runners on second and third.
Christian Seminaro popped out for the second out before Chris Callas came to the plate. A dropped-third strike looked like the end of the road for the Mustangs, but the throw down to first base was in the dirt and Callas was called safe on a very close play as Ganan scored the tying run.
Then came the real shocker as Stricklin alertly broke for home plate where nobody was covering. He scored the winning run standing in an unbelievable ending to a very high-profile game.
"I saw all of the big commotion at first and I don't know if they ever called time or not so I started creeping and when I had my opportunity I took it," said Stricklin. "We know how to battle. We have no quit. That's two games in a row now where we just don't give up."
Mundelein coach Randy Lerner was elated and probably a bit shellshocked with his squad's unlikely late-game heroics.
"That was a good high school baseball game, great pitching on both sides and it was going to take something a little weird or a little special for us," Lerner said. "Winning ugly is better than not winning at all, and we made something happen somehow."
Mundelein starter Bennett Musser was outstanding as he allowed no runs on 6 hits in 6 1/3 innings. Fremd's Tommy Jusi went 2-for-3 at the plate.
Fremd coach Chris Piggott was disappointed to say the least, but very proud of the unlikely playoff run his team made.
"Our guys have been resilient all year. They are great young men, and they're going to be fine," said Piggott, whose team started the season 1-7.
"It's a tough way to lose a game when you feel like you have the game won. To have something like that happen at the end of the game is a tough pill to swallow. It's going to sting for a little while, but they have been through a lot. They'll bounce back and have fond memories of this season."