Sam Maglares isn’t used to taking to the mound for the first time with a lead this season. Especially in his home stadium.

Yet when the Burlington Central senior stepped onto the mound, he came in already holding a lead over Kaneland. And in his final pitching appearance at Rocket Hill, it was all the confidence he needed.

“It really is a completely different game pitching with a lead, you can’t ask for much more as a pitcher from your team,” Maglares said. “When you have a big lead and your game hasn’t even started yet, it’s huge.”

Maglares used the momentum from a four-run first inning and translated it to pitching four-plus innings of one-hit ball, which was enough to help the fifth-seeded Rockets secure a 7-3 victory over the fourth-seeded Knights in Thursday’s Class 3A Burlington Central Regional semifinal.

“Maglares went out there and competed for us on the mound,” Rockets coach Kyle Nelson said. “When you go out there and give us four very solid innings, it’s exactly what we needed. He did what we needed him to do in this game.”

The Rockets (16-18-2) will go on to face top-seeded Geneva (29-7) in the regional final at 11 a.m. Saturday at Burlington. The Vikings defeated eighth-seeded Streamwood 19-0 in four innings to kick off their postseason run.

Central wasted no time getting onto the scoreboard, sending its entire lineup to the plate thanks to three walks, an error and a pair of RBI singles from Tyler Kotwica and Daniel Koertgen to give the team a 4-0 lead before taking the field for defense.

“It felt like a lot of the year, we put ourselves into a two or three-run hole in the first few innings and had to play from behind a lot,” Nelson said. “Getting up like that really just allowed us some options with our offense to do things more than just sitting there and waiting for hits.”

While the Knights got one back in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI fielder’s choice from Christopher Warner, Burlington Central junior David Hintz provided a quick response in the top of the sixth, hitting a leadoff home run to left field. The Rockets went on to add two more runs in the inning thanks to an RBI single from Connor Sreckov and a run-scoring fielder’s choice to bring the lead to 7-1.

“It was the first one of my career, so you can’t really ask for much more than that,” Hintz said. “It was what we needed in the moment. We haven’t had the best season, but this is where it counts, and we did our job.”

The Knights (16-15-1) put up a valiant effort in the bottom of the seventh, getting RBI singles from Brady Alstott and Aidan Whildin that bought the tying run to the plate with just one out. But an unassisted double play from Wagner Viebrock bought an end to both the rally and the season.

“We kept battling and picking away, we just made too many mistakes at the end of the day,” Knights coach Brian Aversa said. “They’re a real solid team, and you can’t make mistakes and get behind the eight ball that early and think you can come back against a team like that.

“But hats off to our guys for not giving up, they fought to the very end. It’s a tough way to end, but we did it to ourselves and we have to own up to it.”

Kaneland finished the regular season as co-Interstate Conference champions despite entering it with a 2-6-1 record. And even with hovering around the .500-mark for the majority of the season, Aversa said there’s a lot to learn from the year for the returners.

“When you have good seniors the way we did, as well as juniors and sophomores that are being good role players and know their role, they really answered to the call,” Aversa said. “They learned a lot this year, especially what to do and what not to do, and we’re going to be better moving forward because of it. And we started hitting our stride a little bit at the end, but we just came up short here.”