After jumping out to an early lead, Wheaton Academy went to its bullpen frequently to stave off a determined Sycamore to win Saturday’s Class 3A St. Francis Regional, 7-4.
Wheaton Academy plated three runs in the first and four in the second for an early 7-0 lead. Four Warrior hurlers went to the bump to successfully derail Sycamore rallies.
With the win, No. 2 Wheaton Academy (29-8)advances to play Rockford Boylan in the second sectional semifinal Wednesday at Sycamore Park Field.
Sycamore, ranked sixth in the same sub-sectional, finished the season with a 16-16 record.
“With playoff baseball, it’s one and done, so I was taking no chances with things. We had a long conversation on how we wanted to handle pitchers,” Wheaton Academy coach Justin Swider said. “We knew that we had a lot of arms in the bullpen and I wasn’t going to let things happen when I had some guys that I knew I could trust in the bullpen ready to go.”
Dom Murrell, the second batter Spartan starting pitcher Sawyer Valdez faced in the top of the first inning, blasted the second pitch he saw over the right field fence for a two-run Warrior home run.
“Going into this game, I made a few adjustments because before the playoffs, I wasn’t really hot,” Murrell said. “I was just looking for that middle end pitch and turned on it.”
After reaching base on an error, teammate Colton Miller scored on Eli Tate’s double to left.
Murrell notched his third RBI of the day, singling in Mark Jackson. Three more runs scored in the frame on a bases loaded hit batsman and sacrifice flies.
Murrell just missed going 4 for 4. Sycamore right fielder Ryker Rissman robbed Murrell of a base hit with a diving catch in the fourth inning.
Sycamore cut Wheaton Aacdemy’s margin in the third on Adam Eder’s two-out based loaded single that plated two Spartan runs. Chance Kuhns followed with an RBI single.
Ray Reinow replaced Sias in the top of the fourth and pitched only an inning. After walking the leadoff batter in the fifth, Reinow handed the ball over to Nathanael Switzer. The junior southpaw retired six batters in a row over the next two frames, but ran into trouble in the seventh by loading the bases on two walks and a single while retiring only one Spartan.
Miller took over and ended the threat by striking out Eder and inducing Kuhns to pop out.
“They told me be ready to go in in the seventh inning, and I was,” said Miller, who played third base for the first six innings.
Sycamore coach Jason Cavanaough was pleased with how his team responded to Wheaton Academy’s early lead.
“They just jumped on us really early, but then we settled into the game and I’m proud of the way our kids came back,” said Cavanaugh. “We had a big three run inning there and we had other chances to score. We had the bases loaded with one out in the 7th inning, so we at least put a little bit of pressure on them in that situation.”
Eder, the only senior on Sycamore’s roster, had mixed feelings about his varsity career finale.
“It’s a lot of emotions, a lot of sadness, a lot of happiness because this is the best group I could have asked for,” Eder said.