Plainfield East completes magical run to Class 4A state championship

Even Plainfield East head coach Adam O’Reel recognized how ludicrous it would have all seemed a month ago to be where he and his Bengals found themselves on Saturday night: hoisting the Class 4A state championship trophy above their heads.

“If you would have told me that in May, I would have looked at you like you had three heads,” O’Reel said.

Plainfield East was a team that at one point this season found itself with a record of 5-12 and, around that time, the Bengals were saddled with a No. 13 seed in a 17-team sectional. Just over a month later, the Bengals own the state’s biggest baseball prize after a 6-5 victory over Lake Park in the championship game held at DuPage Medical Field.

It looked like the title might be a breeze for Plainfield East as they jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but like everything else the Bengals (19-15) have done lately, things had to get a bit dramatic.

The Bengals tacked on two runs in the fifth inning to build what appeared to be an almost insurmountable six-run lead, especially when you consider that the strength throughout the Bengals’ postseason run came from their pitching staff.

[ Photos: Plainfield East bring home the 4A baseball State Championship ]

Plainfield East starting pitcher Gavin Schmitt had danced in and out of trouble in every inning prior to the Lake Park half of the sixth inning, allowing at least one base runner in every inning to that point. But despite those base runners, Schmitt kept the Lancers from denting the scoreboard.

“I felt great. I came in thinking it’s the same game,” Schmitt said. “I’m not coming in thinking it’s the final game. I play my game. I’ve got my defense behind me. I pitched to contact and I wasn’t trying to strike kids out. And the scoreboard shows, no [runs] in the first five innings and that helped out a lot.”

But after Giacomo Fanizza opened the sixth with a double for Lake Park, an infield error allowed Fanizza to score. Two batters later, Mason Baer swatted a two-run home run to make things a bit tighter.

After Danny Rollins singled, Schmitt departed and gave way to Plainfield East closer Christian Mitchelle, but he couldn’t quite wiggle out of the jam, either, surrendering two more hits and allowing the Lancers to inch within 6-5 before recording a strikeout to end the marathon inning.

Mitchelle had an easier time of it in the seventh and quickly recorded two outs before surrendering a two-out walk. He then settled down and induced a groundout to end the game.

“We knew we were better than a No. 13 seed, but also being a No. 13 seed we knew we had nothing to lose,” Mitchelle said. “And because of that, we had no fear going out and playing all these teams.”

Plainfield East roared out of the gates to start the game. Brady Louck swatted a triple to start the game and came around on a Mitchelle single to put the Bengals on the board in the first. They tacked on three more runs in the second, once again with Louck doing the majority of the damage with a two-run double. Mitchelle added a sacrifice fly to stretch the lead to 4-0.

It looked like unnecessary insurance runs for Plainfield East in the fifth as they stringed together a triple from Mitchelle, an RBI double from Jacob Eason and and RBI single from Ryan Skiba to push Plainfield East’s lead to 6-0. Obviously, those runs weighed heavily in the way the game turned in the sixth.

But even when things wavered, the Bengals approached the tense circumstance exactly as they had every time during their improbable postseason run.

“Even when were 5-12, this was still one of the most fun groups [to be] around,” O’Reel said. “We came out and this group was so fun, so loose all the time, and it just kind of built. All we had to do was catch a spark and we did. They just ran with it. We had all this pitching. We just had to figure out how to pick the ball up because we were struggling defensively. We made some changes and we found guys where they fit. We kept telling them to hang in there and come playoff time, with the [Nos.] 1, 2, 3 [pitchers] that we have, we can ride in the playoffs.”