CHAMPAIGN – If one inning can make a difference in a baseball game, Edwardsville's fifth inning Monday can serve as a prime example.
Trailing 3-2 to Orland Park Sandburg going into the top of the fifth, the Tigers knew the need to put up a couple of runs on the scoreboard.
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Not only did they put up a couple of runs, they put up a lot more to break the game wide-open.
The Tigers sent 13 batters to the plate in that fifth inning, scoring eight times and getting key extra-base hits to defeat the Eagles 11-3 in Monday's IHSA Class 4A Champaign Super-Sectional at the University of Illinois' Illinois Field. The win put the Tigers at 33-7 on the year and sent them to their first IHSA state finals since 2007, when the Tigers lost a Class AA quarterfinal game to Naperville Neuqua Valley in the former two-class format; this year's appearance will be EHS' first trip to state in the four-class format, which began in 2008.
Edwardsville will meet Burbank St. Laurence, 5-1 winners over Neuqua Valley in the Crestwood 2 Super-Sectional at Standard Bank Stadium in the Chicago suburb of Crestwood, Ill., at 5 p.m. Friday at Joliet's Silver Cross Field in a state semifinal game, which will be preceded at 3 p.m. by the other semifinal contest between Winnetka New Trier and Crystal Lake South. Friday's winners will meet at 5 p.m Saturday for the state championship, with the third-place game preceding the final at 3 p.m Saturday.
Kade Burns got the win for the Tigers. “He made real good pitches after that (fifth-inning explosion),” said Tiger coach Tim Funkhouser. “Some innings could have got shortened a little bit and they didn't, but he was able to overcome that.
“Boy, was that a big outing out of him; to continue to finish that game says a lot. That guy is so mentally tough and I'm so proud of him.”
Burns wasn't the only one who came up big when the Tigers needed a lift. “A guy like Will Messer comes through,” Funkhouser said, “and you can go down the lineup with a lot of our guys coming through.
“I think that goes to show the way we practice each day, where everything matters and every guy is important to our club, whether it's drawing a walk and Messer, with that two-strike hit (a two-run double that brought home Drake Westcott and Joel Quirin and gave the lead back to Edwardsville to help ignite the Tiger rally) spraying it the other way; they tried to walk Westcott and Quirin gets a hit.
“That was a total team effort and that's what our guys did.”
Westcott opened the game with a double down the line in left, going to third on an error; he scored the game's first run when Quirin grounded to short. Daniel Reed scored the second EHS run in the second, but Sandburg scored twice in the third to tie the game and took the lead on a Ryan Hampe double that brought home Brian Hughes in the bottom of the fourth.
Then came the eight-run explosion for the Tigers, highighted by RBI doubles from Westcott, Messer and Andrew Yancik and a two-run triple from Dylan Burris. “You could see in the preparation that we had a good chance,” Funkhouser said, “the way they compete each time, but you've got to go out there and lay it on the line, so I'm proud of our guys.”
From that point, the Tigers continued to press on, shutting down the Eagles as Burns retired the side in order the final three innings to help send EHS to Joliet; Burns got the win, going the distance and conceding just one earned run on four hits while striking out four. Evan Tenuta took the loss for Sandburg, going 4.1 innings and conceding six earned runs on seven hits while fanning two.
Burris was 2-for-5 with a triple, three RBIs and a run scored, while Yancik was 1-for-4 with a triple and run scored, Westcott 2-for-3 with two doubles, a RBI and two runs scored, Quirin 1-for-3 with two RBIs and a run scored, Messer 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored, Cole Hampton 2-for-4 with a RBI and two runs scored and Daniel Reed, Ike Bertels and Burns a run scored each.
