Baseball: Crystal Lake Central’s rally falls short in regional final loss to Vernon Hills

VERNON HILLS – The situation was not an enviable one for Crystal Lake Central, but at least it was one that Tigers baseball coach Andy Deain had seen before.

Trailing by three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning against Vernon Hills was not where Central wanted to be.

“We have been in this situation like five times this year,” Deain said. “We have been down three [runs] in the fifth, a couple in the sixth, the same in the seventh, and we came back and won those games so the kids believed they could do it again.”

The fourth-seeded Tigers loaded the bases twice in the bottom of the seventh.

After cutting Vernon Hills’ lead to one, Central came up just short as it fell to the fifth-seeded Cougars, 4-3, in Saturday’s Class 3A Vernon Hills Regional final.

Vernon Hills (18-14) advances to the Grayslake Central Sectional semifinals where it will play top-seeded St. Viator at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Central finished its season at 17-14-1.

“The kids believed they could come all the way back,” Deain said. “I thought we just got beat today. We didn’t give them the game. It was just a good high school baseball game.”

Early on, the game was a pitchers’ duel between Nico Acevedo of Crystal Lake Central and Dylan Eckrote of Vernon Hills.

Neither pitcher allowed a hit until singles from Central’s Jaden Obaldo in the fourth inning and Vernon Hills’ Jake Pieper in the fifth.

“Both pitchers really had it going, and you could tell it would be hard to score runs today,” Vernon Hills coach Eric Levin said.

Acevedo got into his first bit of trouble in the fifth.

Three singles into the inning, the last from Josh Yau, gave the Cougars a 1-0 lead going into the bottom half. That is when Central’s bats going going against Eckrote.

A leadoff single from Tommy Korn and a double from Aidan Alig set the Tigers up with runners on second and third and one out. Two batters later, Brian Preshlock grounded out to the right side of the infield, driving in Korn with the tying run.

Vernon Hills took the lead for good in the sixth when Pieper ripped a double to left to score a run.

“Jake [Pieper] is kind of our heart and soul,” Levin said. “He keeps coming up big for us.”

The Cougars added two runs in the top of the seventh on a double from Joey Wizceb before the Tigers started their rally, trailing 4-1.

Back-to-back singles from Obaldo and Acevedo coupled with a walk to Korn loaded the bases and chased Eckrote. One batter later, Preshlock reached on an infield single to knock in one. Sean Kempf followed one pitch later with an RBI single, cutting Vernon Hill’s lead to 4-3.

Central proceeded to load the bases one more time, but saw its comeback come up short as a fly out from Ryan Kempf ended the game.

On the mound, Acevedo was solid for the Tigers, tossing 6 2/3 innings and striking out seven.

“This [senior] class was special because I took over four years ago with them being freshmen when I first came in,” Deain said. “So, this was my first graduating class. They have always been blue-collar, hard-nosed kids.”