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JOLIET – It could be a fairytale ending for the longtime friends and now high school senior teammates Spencer Stearns and Grant Huebner. The two, as well as the rest of their team, will be playing in the Class 4A State Championship game this evening.
It begins at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Joliet from Duly Health and Care Field.
The two mentioned that they’ve been on the same teams off and on since the second grade. Spencer and Grant have grown up together and created a bond that goes a little deeper than just teammates. The two are like brothers.
The pitcher-catcher duo has tons of chemistry and are all around great team leaders. Stearns said that Huebner is more lead by talk while he’s more lead by example.
It was Grant’s triple in the bottom of the fourth against Brother Rice in the state semifinal game that led by example though and blew the game open. With runners on second and third Huebner crushed a bases-clearing triple to make it 6-3. Stearns came up after and hit a sacrifice fly ball to score Grant and make it a 7-3 ball game.
Huebner hit a ball hard and far out toward the center wall in his first at-bat, but the center fielder made a phenomenal back-tracking catch. “That was a bomb,” Huebner said about that piece of hitting.
“After I hit that one, I knew I had to get at least one back, so, that one I hit the gap and I got a triple out of it, it felt really nice,” Huebner added.
Grant and Spencer are in top of the batting order followed by Riley Iffrig in the No. 3 spot. They are certainly a scary part of the order to go up against if you’re the opposing pitcher.
Spencer started on the mound against the Crusaders and went four innings before Alec Marchetto came in to pitch relief. That will be Spencer's last start as Edwardsville's ace.
Stearns repeated head coach Tim Funkhouser’s words from the postgame press conference saying that the two of them are like the rock for the team.
“If we’re up, they’re up, and if we’re down, they’re down. It’s really important that me and him stay on the same page,” Stearns said.
“That’s the chemistry we are talking about,” Huebner said. “Ever since fourth or fifth grade we’ve been on the same team, so a lot of that is just trusting each other. When he’s on the mound, he trusts me behind the plate and I trust him with all his pitches.”
The Tigers went on to beat the Brother Rice Crusaders by a score of 7-4. Brother Rice is the No. 1-ranked team in the state and 14th in the nation. It was a huge win for Edwardsville and Grant and Spencer recognized that.
“We just beat one of the best teams in the Midwest. You can’t ask for more than that,” Stearns said.
They’ll have the chance to end their high school careers on top when they take on Mundelein High School in the championship game.
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