Bureau Valley baseball, St. Bede softball to play for regional titles

Mother Nature won the first round. The Bureau Valley baseball and St. Bede softball teams hope to win the next round.

Their regional championships were rained out Saturday and postponed to Monday.

Class 2A Princeton baseball regional: Bureau Valley seeks its first regional championship in 13 years when it faces Three Rivers rival Erie-Prophetstown at 4:30 p.m. Monday at Prather Field in Princeton.

The Storm rode the big bat of senior left fielder Layton Britt (2 HRs, 3 RBIs) and arm of senior ace Sam Rouse, who pitched a complete-game, to a 5-4 win over No. 3 Riverdale in Thursday’s regional semifinals. The Rams had defeated the Storm 20-4 earlier this season.

No. 8 seeded E-P reached the finals with upsets over No. 5 Princeton 11-8 on Monday and regional favorite Hall 7-5 in Wednesday’s semifinals, both games in which they fell behind 3-0 in the first inning.

Junior right-hander Seth Spratt (2-4, 6.79) will take the mound for the Storm while all of E-P pitchers will be eligible to pitch with the extra days of rest afforded by the rainout.

Rouse (8-1) set the single-season school record with his eighth win Thursday. The Storm are 6-9 in games he does not pitch.

It’s the first regional finals appearance for the Storm since John King’s memorable “Shot heard around Bureau Valley” walk-off homer over heavily-favored Princeton in 2009.

BV was two outs away from winning a regional championship in 2007, but lost to Savanna West Carroll 10-9.

The regional champion advances to the Knoxville Sectional to meet No. 5 Brimfield, which beat No. 6 Manito Midwest Central, 10-5, on Friday to win its own regional, on 4 p.m. Thursday.

There will be two area 1A regional baseball finals today that are resuming where they left off when Saturday games were suspended by rain.

No. 1 seed and host Ottawa Marquette (27-3) and No. 3 Newark (21-7) will pick up in the bottom of the second inning at 4:30 p.m. with Marquette at bat with one out and a runner on second, but trailing the Norsemen 2-0.

At Somonuak, No. 2 Putnam County (25-8) and No. 5 Yorkville Christian (10-11-1) will pick up in the bottom of the fourth inning starting at 4:30 p.m. with PC up 6-1 with the bases loaded.

1A St. Bede softball regional: Putnam County will make the 7.2-mile trek across the river 48 hours later than planned to face host St. Bede for the Class 1A regional title at the Academy at 4 p.m. today.

No. 1 St. Bede (18-3) beat Henry 10-0 on Tuesday while No. 5 Putnam County (11-11) beat No. 6 Peoria Christian 9-5 on Wednesday.

The regional champion advances to the Williamsfield Sectional to face Woodhull AlWood in the second semifinal of the night at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. No. 2 AlWood beat vs. No. 5 Williamsfield 4-0 on Friday.