Baseball: Dixon takes second straight regional title with run-rule win over Freeport

DIXON – A little rain never hurt anybody. It certainly didn’t derail the Dixon baseball team’s quest for a second straight Class 3A regional title Monday night.

Starting pitcher Eli Dever got stronger as the game progressed, and the Dukes had four innings where they scored at least two runs in a 14-4, 5-inning win over Freeport at Veterans Memorial Field.

“Two in row, we’ve never, never done that before, and conference back-to-back, we’ve never done that before either; obviously you’ve got COVID in there, but I’m just very proud of these guys,” Dixon coach Jason Burgess said. “I just can’t say enough about our seniors and how they played, and Eli was definitely a huge, huge piece of that.

“He’s just a gutsy, bulldog kid, and you can’t ask for a better start from him, a senior stepping up on the mound. He struggled a little bit early with his location, but battled through it and got better as the game went on.”

Dever (6-0) finished with seven strikeouts and four walks, but all four walks came the first time through the Freeport batting order when the rain was coming down hardest. He pitched 1-2-3 innings in the third and fifth, and gave up only two runs and three hits after the first inning. He threw 66 of his 96 pitches for strikes.

“I try to not throw in the same spot every time, mix up pitches, throw it in the dirt, throw it high. I threw the changeup a couple of times, and that worked really well tonight,” Dever said. “The rain started to die down a little bit, the mound started to get a little better than it was in the first inning, and I was able to grip the ball better.

“And it takes all the stress off my shoulders when the offense can do whatever they can to score runs however they can.”

Like it has been all season, Dixon (16-2) was unfazed facing an early deficit, this time 2-0 going into the bottom of the first inning. Beau Evans ripped a one-out double, then went to third on a throwing error on the play. Andrew Pollom followed with an RBI ground ball that was misplayed, then went to third on another error on Jake Gaither’s fielder’s choice.

Gage Burdick then walked to load the bases, and Dever helped himself with a sacrifice fly to center. Michael Ullrich kept up his hot hitting with a two-out, two-run single to center for a 4-2 lead.

“It doesn’t matter to us when we’re behind early,” Ullrich said. “We know that it’s early in the game, and we we know we have a good-hitting team, so I don’t think it made a difference to us that we were behind. We took advantage of what their defense gave us, and that’s how we win ballgames.”

After the first two Pretzels reached base in the second inning, Dever buckled down and induced a bunt popout, a strikeout and a full-swing bunt in the next seven pitches.

The Dukes expanded their lead in the bottom of the second. Ethan Van Horn led off with a walk and scored on Hayden Steinmeyer’s triple to right-field corner; Steinmeyer then scored on a throwing error on a wayward pickoff attempt. Ryan Pitzer and Evans both walked and moved up on a pair of wild pitches, the second one scoring Pitzer, then Evans stole home when Pollom, who had also walked, stole second; he went to third when the throw went into center field. Burdick drove in Pollom with a one-out double for a 9-2 lead.

“It’s just slowing down the moment and playing for each other,” said Burdick, when asked about the Dukes’ clutch hitting. “We’ve done that all year, and it’s huge for us to get our game rolling early and get some run support behind our pitcher.”

Both teams went down 1-2-3 in the third, and Freeport added a pair of runs in the fourth on Maddux Shockey’s two-run bloop double.

But again, Dixon had the answer. Evans led off with a single, stole second, and came all the way around to score on Pollom’s sac bunt. Ullrich later drew a bases-loaded walk to force in Gaither, and Van Horn followed with a sac fly to plate Burdick for a 12-4 lead.

“Postseason is crucial, because we know it’s win or go home, so we need those huge runs,” Ullrich said. “If there’s somebody in scoring position, we know we need to drive them in. But we do it any way we can – a hit, an error, a walk, just reaching base. That’s just how we’ve always been, and we know how key it is to get those clutch hits and score those runs.”

After Dever’s 1-2-3 fifth, Steinmeyer led off the bottom of the inning with a single, then Pitzer and Evans drew walks to load the bases. Pollom then walked to force in a run, and for the second straight game, Gaither ended it with an RBI single.

“I told Jake before he went to the plate, ‘Get ready, you’re going to end it again,’ and he just kind of looked at me, and I said, ‘It’s gonna happen!,’ ” Burgess said. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in these guys, but not only that, you can hear them in the dugout, they believe in each other. This is more than anything you’ve ever seen before with this group. When they come on the field for the game, they play ball.”

Dixon finished with eight hits, including a pair of doubles and a triple, and seven different Dukes had RBIs, led by Pollom and Ullrich with three each. They also took advantage of 10 walks and six errors from Freeport.

“Tip your cap to them, because they got us a couple times this year, but defensive woes killed us today,” Freeport coach Shaun Dascher said. “And that’s been our whole year; we’re good when we play defense and we’re not so good when we don’t. We knew the equation, and we didn’t follow it today.”

Ty Reynolds

Ty Reynolds

Ty is the Sports Editor at Sauk Valley Media, and has covered sports in the Sauk Valley for more than two decades.