Baseball: St. Bede’s Bill Booker earns 500th career victory

MANLIUS — There is success and then there is sustained success and in high school baseball, 500 wins is epitome of that.

St. Bede coach Bill Booker reached the milestone Thursday when the Bruins outlasted Bureau Valley 10-8 in 8 innings in a Three Rivers Conference East Division game.

“You don’t get to this milestone without a whole lot of help from a lot of incredible people,” said Booker, who has won 125 games in eight seasons at St. Bede and won 375 games in 20 seasons at La Salle-Peru. “None of this happens without the unbelievable amount of great players through the years, and then you need to have good staffs, which I have been lucky enough to have, especially my current guys (Mike Bima and Jim Eustice). Without them, this is impossible.

“But the most important people are my family — my brother, John, made the trip tonight and that meant a lot to me and without the support of my kids, Cody, Haley, Kiley and Brady it doesn’t happen. But the two people who deserve the most credit are my mom, Virginia, because of the way she raised me and the values she instilled in me and my wife, Manuela, who runs the show at home and gave me the opportunity to do something I love for this many years.”

“You don’t get to this milestone without a whole lot of help from a lot of incredible people.”

—  Bill Booker, St. Bede baseball coach

The night began with Bureau Valley honoring its nine seniors — Cooper Balensiefen, Seth Spratt, Brik Rediger, Sam Wright, Isaac Attig, Sam Rouse, Ethan Freeman, Riley Cole and Ayize Martin.

“They are a bunch of great players and we use them all over in several different ways,” BV coach Ryan Schisler said. “They have always given us their best and we are going to miss having them.”

The game started out with a bang as both teams plated four runs in the first inning.

The Bruins scored first on a hit by Brendan Pillion, a two-run single from Luke Tunnell and consecutive hits from Alan Spencer, Callan Hueneburg and Seth Ferrari.

The Storm bounced back as Rouse, Wright and Martin hit singles before a Bruin miscue and a hit from Rediger, the first of his four hits, and the game was tied after one.

The Bruins retook the lead as Gus Burr singled before Pillion brought him home with a single to put SBA up 5-4.

In the bottom half of the inning, Ferrari settled down and put up a scoreless frame.

The Bruins added one more in the third, this time hits from Hueneburg and Ryan Slingsby did the trick.

But again the Storm responded with a run of their own on another Redinger RBI hit to cut the lead to 6-5 after three innings.

After the Bruins went scoreless in the top of the fourth, the Storm got an unearned run off Pillion to tie the score at 6-6.

The Bruins quickly jumped back in the lead with a pair of runs in the sixth on a two-run single from Nathan Husser.

The Storm battled back to tie the contest with a run powered by hits from Balensiefen, Rouse and Martin and a Rediger triple that set up the tying run to send the game into extra innings.

In the top of the eighth, Spencer drew a walk and Hueneburg was hit by a pitch, setting the stage for Ryan Brady, who delivered a clutch single up the middle to give the Bruins a lead.

Burr followed with an RBI single of his own to give Saint Bede a 10-8 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth.

In the bottom half, Pillion finished it off with the help of a pair of nifty plays from first baseman John Brady.

“You have to give them credit, they battled us all day and we knew it was going to come down to who was going to get hits last and fortunately it was us.” Booker said.