Brysen Meents, just called up to varsity, belts walk-off homer as Wilmington tops Coal City for regional title

COAL CITY – It was a day where it looked like Wilmington’s Lucas Rink could put zeros up on the scoreboard all day if he had to.

Pitch count limits, of course, insure that isn’t possible, but Wilmington sophomore Brysen Meents made sure Rink wouldn’t be pushed to that brink in Saturday’s Class 2A Coal City Regional final.

Meents, who was called up to the Wilmington varsity less than three weeks ago, led off the bottom of the seventh inning with a fly ball to left field that just kept carrying and eventually landed about five feet behind the barrier for a solo home run and a 1-0 win over Coal City.

“I thought it was just a fly ball,” Meents said of his first high school home run. “I was so excited I almost missed first base.”

Wilmington (22-8) advances to next week’s Beecher Sectional where it will play Chicago Christian at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the semifinal round. Chicago Christian defeated Peotone 10-0 in the Chicago Christian Regional final.

It looked like Saturday’s game might go on scoreless for quite some time as Wilmington’s Rink and Coal City’s Lance Cuddy didn’t seem too interested in allowing base runners of any kind.

Rink was perfect through the first three innings and didn’t allow his first hit until Cuddy led off the fourth inning with a double. Rink promptly picked off Cuddy on a beautiful pickoff play, which proved important as the next two Coalers (23-11) would also reach before Rink locked back in to retire the next two batters.

Wilmington was scattering its hits against Cuddy, but did not mount many serious threats either. But it looked like a golden opportunity was missed in the sixth. Dierks Geiss led off the inning with a double and Zach Ohlund followed with a soft single that moved him over to third with none out.

But Cuddy struck out the next two batters and induced a ground out to leave the Wildcats wanting.

Despite that misfortune, Rink seemed prepared to keep going as long as necessary even though his pitch count was climbing into the danger zone.

“That’s kind of my job on the mound,” Rink said. “I told everybody that all I needed was one to win today and I was going to do my job if they did theirs.

“I knew we would. It’s always someone different in the postseason, never the same.”

The source of that run was largely unexpected though. Even by the person who provided it.

“That was crazy,” Meents admitted. “Declan Moran (Wilmington on-deck batter) told me to go up there and swing at the first pitch. So that’s what I did. I went up there thinking just get on base, anything, and then that happened.”

It was just another chapter in a book of stories this group of Wilmington players have put together for its head coach Mike Bushnell.

“That script is just awesome,” Bushnell said. “I’m just so proud of our guys hanging in there. There were some situations we got ourselves in and we just kept our composure. And Rink was just awesome. He never lost his command. He’s unbelievable.”