For the past two postseasons, the Minooka baseball team has had its season ended at the hands of Bradley-Bourbonnais.

Last year’s 2-1 loss in the regional final was particularly galling for the Indians, considering that was just one of three losses they took on the 2025 season.

So when the postseason draw came out at Minooka was assured of playing Bradley-Bourbonnais for the fifth consecutive postseason in the Class 4A Bradley-Bourbonnais Regional on Wednesday, suffice to say Minooka wasn’t taking anything from granted.

As such, Minooka jumped out to an early 6-0 lead, extended it to 9-0 before the Boilermakers finally broke through with a little offense before the Indians finished off a 12-3 win and took a heavy weight of relief off their collective shoulders.

“They have had our number for the last couple of years, but every year is different,” Minooka coach Jeff Petrovic said. “They are a good program and they play the game the right way. But we came in today not really worried about the other team, but worried about taking care of themselves, playing the game the right way.”

Minooka (28-6) will play either third-seeded Plainfield Central or Peoria Richwoods in Saturday’s 11 a.m regional final. Those two teams will square off in the other semifinal on Thursday afternoon. Bradley-Bourbonnais finished its season with a 12-20 record.

The Indians left the bases loaded in the first inning before a crooked number came in a gritty second. Without a single base hit, Minooka had five batters reach base and plated two of them. Then in the third, Minooka got its first hit of the game by Joey Rutz, who would then come off the books after getting caught in a rundown, only to have Minooka have five consecutive baserunners reach without the benefit of a hit again.

After the dust cleared from that chaos, Minooka led 6-0.

“Our guys had good at-bats today, put maximum pressure on them and that’s what you have to do in the postseason,” Petrovic said.

On the flipside, facing an extremely limited amount of pressure was Minooka starter Zane Caves. Caves saw no more than four batters per inning in each of the first four frames and allowed his offense to give himself plenty of cushion to land if need be.

Even though he didn’t really need it.

“This game definitely meant something to me and especially this team,” Caves said. “They’ve knocked us out the last two years. But I trust in this offense and the defense behind me. They don’t make any errors. So I was just coming out here with confidence.”

Caves did give a few inches in the Boilermaker fifth inning as Bradley strung together three runs on four hits, highlighted by an RBI triple from Keaton Allison. But he was back on point in the sixth, striking out the side as he’d finish with nine strikeouts before giving way to Logan Mackin, who tossed a scoreless seventh inning to finish out the game.

Bradley-Bourbonnais was hoping it would be able to keep its postseason mystique happening once again this season as the heavy underdog Boilermakers played at a much better level in the second half that their record might indicate.

But Bradley’s collective pitching staff walked 10 batters, hit two more and the defense committed three errors, virtually evaporating any chance of the Boilermakers playing spoiler.

“Both defensively and on the mound we weren’t as sharp as we wanted to be,” Bradley-Bourbonnais coach Brad Schweigert said. “We’ve said it all along. Defense and pitching wins championships.

“Credit to Minooka. They are a good team. They take good swings on balls and play good defense. They are just solid all the way around. We knew we were going to have to play a really good game, and we didn’t play the best game we wanted to.”

https://www.shawlocal.com/the-herald-news/2026/03/07/benet-makes-key-plays-when-it-needs-to-in-topping-bolingbrook/