There aren’t a lot of similarities from the Providence roster of the past two years where the Celtics won a combined 60 games and a Class 4A State Title in 2024.

A lot of new faces have replaced those that seemed to provide the foundation for Providence for multiple years.

But what hasn’t changed despite those new faces is the program’s ability to grind out wins when opportunities present themselves.

That was on display again on Thursday as Providence collected a 7-5 win over Joliet Catholic in the quarterfinal round of the WJOL/Don Ladas Memorial Tournament held at Wintrust Crossroads Sportplex in New Lenox.

The win lifted the Celtics (3-0) into the semifinal round where it will face Lockport, a 7-3 winner over Plainfield East in Thursday night’s semifinal round, weather permitting.

“Last year we had a lot of three and four year varsity kids, and you know not having the Infelice’s the O’Donnell’s and the Eggers, you miss them, but they left a legacy for these guys to follow,” Providence coach Mark Smith said. “But we’re getting back to coaching again, because there wasn’t that much to do we had all those returners coming back and hey knew what they had to do.

“And now its a whole new thing. So we get to start over and we’re actually kind of enjoying this.”

Joliet Catholic (2-5) scratched out an unearned run in the top of the third inning, but Providence quickly countered and took control of the game with a five-run third inning.

Easton Eggert and Bryce Tencza both came up with two-run doubles in the frame for the Celtics as Providence sent 10 batters to the plate in the crucial inning.

None of that would have been possible without the efforts of Providence’s table setters at the top of the order. One of the few players on the Providence roster with significant experience, Sammy Atkinson, led the attack with three hits.

“We’re definitely not the team we had last year,” Atkinson said. “We’re super talented, but you know, we’re all about grit this year. Grinding our teeth and you know a lot of them are going to come down the wire and it is going to be about whether or not we can pull through or not.”

Joliet Catholic didn’t go away without a fight getting a sacrifice fly from Cody Busch in the fourth and RBI groundouts from AJ Perez and Steve Martin in the fifth to pull the Hilltoppers to within 5-4.

But in the top of the sixth, Providence has another new face, Landon Ehman, deliver a critical two-out double in the fifth to push Providence’s lead back to three (7-4).

That turned out to be especially important as Providence reliever Brendan Carlson did a nice job stymying a Joliet Catholic rally earlier in the game but tired in the seventh and surrendering another RBI single to Martin and putting the potential tying runners on base before giving way to Mason Almanzan who recorded a strikeout to end the threat and the game.

“We’re a very young team, without a lot of experience, and we made a lot of mistakes but we found a way to win,” Smith said. “So I credit the boys for that.”

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