Sports
Baseball: Neuqua's Run Ends With Providence Loss
Providence 5, Neuqua Valley 2. Wildcats fail to hold early 2-0 lead in sectional semifinals.
NAPERVILLE – For a time Thursday, Neuqua Valley’s baseball team had arguably the state’s best team, Providence, on the ropes in the Class 4A Neuqua Valley Sectional semifinals.
The Wildcats strung together three hits to start the game and opened a two-run lead. In the end, however, it was Providence, a team that has seemed destined to reach the state finals all season long, that gave Neuqua a little more than it could handle.
Neuqua’s postseason run ended with a 5-2 loss, but coach Robin Renner couldn’t stop singing the praises of his 25-win club.
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“I was very happy, very proud of these guys,” Renner said. “Throughout the game they did some very good things against a very good team.
"You don’t win every game. That’s tough. They laid it on the line. Our team gave us a chance to win. As a coach that’s all you ask. Just put ourselves in a position so we have a chance to win and they did. We just didn’t win.”
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Early on, Neuqua (25-11) got to Northwestern-bound Providence starter Brandon Magallones. Consecutive singles from Nick Oleskowicz, Nick Iarrobino and Tanner Giesel opened a quick 2-0 lead before an out had even been recorded.
“They just came out and punched us in the mouth a little bit,” Providence coach Mark Smith said. “They came out swinging. It may have been a good thing for us, to wake us up a little bit. They came out and executed their game plan right out of the gates.”
Unfortunately for the Wildcats, Magallones settled in. He sat in the high 80s with his fastball and threw his change-up and a biting curveball for strikes the rest of the way. In fact, Neuqua’s only other hit the rest of the game was an Iarrobino double in the fifth.
Magallones (7-2) wound up striking out 11, walking two and allowing two runs on four hits in seven innings.
“He’s really good,” Renner said. “He deserves credit. It’s tough to hit a kid like that. Somebody said, ‘At this level, that’s tough to hit.’ At this level? Go to the next level, it’s still going to be tough to hit.”
With Magallones settled in, the Celtics (34-2) started to chip away at Neuqua and starter Nick Blackburn. They plated a pair of unearned runs in the third thanks to a pair of errors and an RBI single from Sam Travis.
They took the lead for good in the fifth. Matt Trowbridge walked, moved up on a sacrifice bunt and was singled in by Kevin DeFilippis. They added a pair of insurance runs in the sixth to put the game away.
“We knew when you play a team like this, you can’t make many mistakes,” Renner said. “You almost have to play a perfect game to beat a team like this.”
The Wildcats will say goodbye to 12 seniors. They walk away with the most wins Neuqua has had in a season since 2008, a regional championship and a final four appearance in the summer state tournament last year.
“I think they had an exceptional year,” Renner said. “They got to do some things that no other team did. They should walk out of here with their heads held high and be proud of what they accomplished.”
