Sports
Baseball: Redwings Fall To Powerful Providence
Providence 3, Benet 0. The Redwings topple Hinsdale South, 12-0, in the morning before dropping the regional title game to the Celtics in the afternoon Saturday.
LISLE – Benet Academy’s baseball team knew the challenge facing it Saturday.
Thanks to lousy weather, the Redwings had to play their Class 4A Benet Regional semifinal game at 10 a.m. Saturday against Hinsdale South. Their reward for a win? One of the state’s top teams, Providence, about a half hour later for the regional title.
Benet took care of its end of the bargain with a 12-0, five-inning win over Hinsdale South in the first game. Nick Moore’s grand slam in the top of the fifth essentially put that one away.
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But in the second game, the second-seeded Celtics scratched out just enough offense to win its first regional title in two years, 3-0.
“We knew it would be two tough games,” Moore said. “We already played Hinsdale South (this season), so we knew what we were getting into. We played really well in that game. Then in the second one, we just wanted to shock people. To knock out Providence, that would have been amazing. We came out and played hard.”
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Moore had a lot to do with it. He went the distance on the mound for the Redwings (18-19). He allowed only one earned run and struck out seven, but took the loss to fall to 0-5 on the season.
“Nick gave us everything that you could ask him to give and kept us right in the game,” Benet coach Jeff Bonebrake said. “We made it exciting at the end. You can’t give a team like that any opportunities. For us to beat them, we’d have to play a nearly perfect game. We just didn’t do that.”
The opportunity for Providence (33-2) came in the third inning. Starting pitcher Matt Trowbridge reached on an error to start the inning, a pitch hit Dan Wetzel and Kevin DeFilippis sacrificed them both up. Moore then uncorked a wild pitch and the throw back to the plate got away, scoring both runs to open a 2-0 lead.
“Those runs were vital,” Trowbridge said. “In games like these in the playoffs, everybody’s got a clean slate. You have to come out and be ready to play. Everybody wants to advance. You have to come out and bring your best effort.”
Trowbridge was just nasty enough to keep the Redwings at bay. He started to run out of gas in the seventh, but he went 6 1/3 solid innings before that. Benet’s main offensive threat came in the fourth. Chris Stout cracked a two-out double to culminate a 13-pitch at-bat and Zac Lewinski followed with a single. But Trowbridge rung up Kevin Jendra looking to end the threat.
“I’m proud of how our kids battled,” Bonebrake said. “We couldn’t get the big hit when we needed it. Very proud of this team and how far we progressed throughout the year. That’s all you ask in tournament time, you give the ball to the kids that want to compete. We battled the best in the state.”
