Baseball: Geneseo knocks out Dixon in sectional final

GENESEO – These Maple Leafs can rake, and they proved it to Dixon in a Class 3A sectional championship baseball game on Friday night.

Geneseo rapped out 16 hits and was in control the whole way, slugging its way to a 13-3, 5-inning victory against the Dukes at Stone Field in Richmond Hill Park.

It is the first sectional championship in baseball for the Maple Leafs.

“It feels really good,” senior second baseman Charlie Rice said. “This is the farthest any team in Geneseo history has gone, and I’m glad, as seniors, the whole team got to do this.”

Geneseo (20-10) will host Washington in a supersectional game on Monday. Washington defeated Morton 11-5 in its sectional final.

“It’s a really great feeling that these guys get to keep playing,” Geneseo coach Joe Nichols said. “We were kind of bummed that the season was going to be condensed anyway, so now we’re trying to milk it for all it’s worth. This group, they’re in the history books for a reason. They’re special.”

Dixon (17-3), meanwhile, will have to settle for three playoff wins, on the heels of a state tournament appearance in 2019.

“I can’t say enough about this senior group,” Dixon coach Jason Burgess said. “It hasn’t been an easy season in many ways, but the seniors kept this thing going.”

Both teams were in same situation in that its top two starters were unavailable. For Dixon, that meant Eli Dever and Gage Burdick would not see the mound.

Jacob Gaither started and allowed four earned runs, three hits, two hit batsmen and a walk in one inning. Andrew Pollom started the second inning and allowed six runs (five earned), seven hits and a walk in 1 1/3 innings. When Pollom departed, Geneseo was ahead 10-2.

Rice led the hit parade with three hits, including a triple, a walk and three runs scored. PJ Moser and Nathan Beneke were a combined 2-for-3 with three walks, two hit by pitches and six runs scored, while Thomas Henson and Mitch Wirth each had three singles.

“We’ve been putting a lot of work in practice this week,” Rice said. “We took [batting practice] before the game today, and it was probably our best BP session of the year, and it carried over to the game.”

Geneseo’s top two pitchers are twins Charlie Rice and Carson Rice, neither of whom could throw on Friday. Jake Nelms, a soft-tossing left-hander, went the first two innings and allowed one run, two walks and a hit batter, with three strikeouts. Reliever Gannon Newkirk, a righty who threw softer than Nelms, allowed two runs, four hits and three walks, with one strikeout, in three innings.

Dixon managed just four hits – a double from Dever, two singles by Pollom and a base hit from Gaither – off the two Maple Leaf back-line hurlers.

“It was just a bad game,” Dixon’s Ryan Pitzer said. ”Those two pitchers were, honestly, they were bad. They were two of the worst pitchers we’ve seen all year, but we couldn’t hit the ball. Eventually, when you’re down early, luck runs out. We’ve been coming back all postseason, I love these guys, but it just didn’t work out for us today.

“[Geneseo] hit very good today. Props to them. They’re a good team.”

A Dixon offense that produced a combined 33 runs in postseason wins against Rochelle, Freeport and Burlington Central never found its stride against Geneseo.

“…They didn’t throw anything special at us,” Burgess said, “but they did enough to beat us and make us look pretty silly tonight.”

The third Dixon pitcher, freshman lefty Max Clark, tossed 1 2/3 scoreless innings before running into trouble in the fifth. He walked Moser and Beneke to start the inning, then Henson rapped an RBI single. With one out, Weller plated Beneke with a base hit.

With two outs, the bases loaded and Charlie Rice at the plate, Clark threw a wild pitch that allowed Henson to score the clincher on a close play at the plate.

“My hat’s off to Geneseo,” Burgess said. “That team came to hit, and they came to play from the get-go.”

Now the Maple Leafs will be at full strength and in the friendly confines of Stone Field for Monday’s 3A Geneseo Supersectional. The staff ace, Carson Rice, will get the start.

“We just figured if we could get a Johnny Wholestaff day and get a win, we get to play on Monday with our best guys available,” Nichols said.

Baseball

3A sectional final

Geneseo 13, Dixon 3, 5 inn.

Star of the game: Charlie Rice, Geneseo, 3-for-3, 3B, 3 R

Key performers: PJ Moser, Nathan Beneke, Geneseo, 3 R apiece; Eli Dever, Dixon, 2B, RBI

Up next: Geneseo Supersectional, Washington at Geneseo, 6 p.m. Monday