Brandon Shannon pitches McHenry into IHSA state title game

JOLIET – It was Brandon Shannon’s show and his baseball.

And he wasn’t letting go of the ball, not with McHenry going for more school history.

When the senior righty finally yielded to reliever Zach Readdy, he was greeted by a standing ovation by McHenry’s fans at Duly Health and Care Field. Readdy then recorded the final three outs, as the Warriors beat Brother Rice 4-1 in a Class 4A state semifinal late Friday night.

Shannon threw a season-high 115 pitches in six-plus innings and wanted to finish what he started “really badly,” he said. He settled for the most important thing: another victory for his team and himself.

“I know that Zach is always there for me,” said Shannon, the Louisville commit. “Going over my pitch limit by that much probably isn’t the safest thing in the world, but I wanted to finish it.”

Shannon’s 12th win of the season – against zero losses – earned McHenry (36-4-1) a berth in Saturday’s 7 p.m. state championship game against Libertyville (35-4), while putting hard-hitting Brother Rice (37-4) in the third-place game against Normal Community (36-5) at 4 p.m.

It will be McHenry’s first time playing for a state title. The Warriors, who continue to add to their school-record win total, finished fourth in Class 4A in their only other appearance at state in 2022.

“It’s amazing,” McHenry coach Brian Rockweiler said. “We’ve got a great group of seniors. Our motto is, ‘Work wins.’ These guys have worked their tails off since we lost last year in the supersectional.”

Shannon, who raised his school-record win total to 26, recorded his single-season school-record 108th strikeout (his fifth of the game) when he got Nolan Ramoley swinging with one out in the fourth, after picking off Conner Stack (leadoff single) at first base.

Warriors assistant coach Zach Badgley set the previous mark with 107 strikeouts in 2007.

Shannon finished with eight strikeouts while allowing three walks and five hits. He threw 96 pitches through five innings and was at 108 through six.

With McHenry up 4-1 after Kaden Wasniewski’s two-RBI single in the bottom of the sixth, Rockweiler gave Shannon the ball to start the seventh.

“We just wanted to get as many outs as we could with him,” Rockweiler said. “He wanted the ball. We were going to take him out after the fifth, and then Coach Badgley came to me and said, ‘Nope. He wants it.’ ”

Ramoley reached on an infield single to start the Brother Rice seventh, ending Shannon’s night. Readdy got a double play for the first two outs and then, after a single by Gavin Stanislawski, struck out the final batter, sending the Warriors into celebration mode on the infield.

In a battle of aces, both Shannon and Brother Rice junior lefty Braydon McKendrick (11-1) struggled with their control in the first inning.

Shannon paid for back-to-back walks with one out when Aidan Nohava hit an RBI single. Similarly, he allowed runs in each of the first two innings (one earned) in the sectional final against Barrington before settling in and throwing shutout frames in the third and fourth, his last.

“Yeah, I’m not very good at starting out of the gate,” Shannon said. “It always takes me like two innings. I don’t know why. I just take a deep breath and calm my nerves.”

McKendrick loaded the bases with none out in the first, hitting Carver Cohn and Wasniewski and walking No. 2 hitter Landon Clements. Kyle Maness’ RBI walk tied the score, and the speedy Clements scored on Jeffry Schwab’s shallow sacrifice fly to right to give the Warriors a 2-1 lead.

McKendrick was then pulled and replaced by fellow lefty Danny Sheehan, who worked 4⅔ innings, holding the Warriors scoreless until their two-run sixth.

Clements stole his 20th base of the season after drawing a two-out walk in the second but was stranded.

“We’ve got these young guys here who bat 1-2-3 [in the batting order],” Rockweiler said of leadoff man and freshman Cohn and sophomores Clements and Wasniewski. “They compete.”

McHenry added big insurance runs in the sixth. Donovan Christmas crushed a double to the left-center gap, and after one out Cohn reached on a bunt single. Cohn then stole second, and after Clements struck out Wasniewski delivered an opposite-field single to right scoring pinch runner Jacob McConnell and Cohn.

Wasniewski, who ripped a single in his prior at-bat, said he wasn’t surprised Brother Rice pitched to him with first base open.

“I didn’t really think too much of it,” Wasniewski said. “I just stuck to my plan, stuck to my approach.”

That’s what McHenry has done all season.