Rockford baseball playoff roundup: 4 teams, 4 classes, 4 low-scoring thrillers

Rockford’s baseball season came to an end Saturday. In painful ways.

All four local teams still alive lost by two or fewer runs. The two teams that had a chance to advance to the elite eight led or were tied going into the final inning. And two of them were stopped by pitchers who will play big-time baseball at Notre Dame and Louisville next year.

And one of those wasn’t even supposed to pitch. Brendan Tunink, who hit three home runs to beat Dakota in the sectional finals last year, will play at Notre Dame because of his bat. He threw 3 ⅓ innings of scoreless relief in a 5-3 win over North Boone, striking out seven.

“I don’t think he has pitched all year, because Notre Dame doesn’t want him to get hurt because he is going there as a position player,” losing pitcher Matt Self said. “It’s good that we made them give a last-ditch effort and get their guy in there. Forcing them to that point is a big deal.”

Here is how the season ended for local teams in the Class 1A and 2A sectional finals as well as the 3A and 4A regional finals:

Class 1A: East Dubuque 4, Forreston 3

Angel Reyes, who holds numerous East Dubuque records, notched his 100th strikeout of the season in the first inning. It felt like he had that many in the game. He struck out 12 of the first 16 batters he face and finished with 16 strikeouts, two walks and only three hits allowed.

Yet Forreston (24-9) scored three earned runs off him and led 4-3 heading into the seventh inning in the Forreston Sectional.

“We did what we needed to do offensively — and we pissed it away on defense,” Forreston coach Mike McClellan said. “When you do that, you lose. These are tough games. Two good teams. Everyone is playing well this time of year. When you do what we did on defense, you lose.”

Forreston starter Alex Ryia gave up only one hit in 2 ⅔ innings, but he threw a wild pitch and made a throwing error on a dribbler back to the mound to give East Dubuque (25-7) two unearned runs in the third.

Forreston had led 1-0 after Kendall Erdmann led off his second straight sectional game with a triple. Carson Akins knocked him in with an infield grounder. Akins also drove in Kaden Ganz and Erdmann with his second double of the game to put the Cardinals ahead 3-2 in the fifth.

“We had a nice start with momentum. It died down a little, then we got it back,” said Akins, who had all three Forreston RBIs. “We just couldn’t hold on.”

Said Brendan Greenfield, who threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings in two separate stints in relief, “Carson had a great game. Defensively, we couldn’t get it done. But I thought we did enough against (Reyes) to win.”

Three runs were about all the Cardinals could expect to get against a pitcher who was ahead in the count all day and throwing nearly 90 mph.

“Props to him. He was chucking,” Akins said.

Erdmann, who relieved Greenfield in the sixth, walked the leadoff hitter in the seventh then gave up an RBI double down the right-field line to Reyes to tie the game. Reyes then scored the game-winner on a sacrifice fly to center, barely beating the throw home.

“I couldn’t throw a strike, and the kid hasn’t had many hits in the tournament, so I gave him one right there, and he hit it,” Erdmann said.

Class 2A: Sterling Newman 5, North Boone 3

North Boone won the first sectional title in any traditional sport in school history Saturday when its softball team beat Richmond-Burton 2-0. The Vikings could have done the same in baseball if not for Tunink.

“It would be nice to see him go far,” said Self, who lasted into the seventh inning for North Boone before having to be pulled because of his pitch count. “I could brag to people we almost knocked them out. We pushed them to the limits. That’s a good sign.”

North Boone (26-9) set a school record for wins this year and won only its second regional title in 30 years.

“Coming in as a freshman, we weren’t a program meant for baseball,” Self said. “Everyone cared about football. No one cared about baseball. My sophomore and junior year we got more people to recognize us. This run, even though we fell short of what we wanted to, I think it will bring a lot of attention to the North Boone program.”

North Boone got a runner on base in all three full innings Tunink pitched, but couldn’t score.

“They were fearless,” North Boone coach Andrew Baden said. “He’s a great player, but they didn’t look scared in the box. We just couldn’t come through in the one or two big moments like we have all year.”

“Our guys got on him pretty early,” Self said. “That cooled the nerves. But it was apparent, when he wanted to put the ball in the zone, he got it past us.”

Class 3A: Burlington Central 5, Belvidere North 3

Josh Joseph had three hits and two RBIs for Belvidere North, yet he was also a big part of the what-ifs going through Blue Thunder heads at the end of the day. Joseph twice doubled off the fence but didn’t score. A couple of feet higher and he’d have two home runs. Jack Chamberlin was also robbed of a double by a leaping catch by Burlington’s Central’s 6-foot-4 first baseman, and Kaden McElroy missed a two-run double that was foul by an inch.

“It was jaw-clinching from start to finish. Very fun to be a part of,” North coach Nolan Cusimano said.

Burlington Central (24-9) scored single runs in the first four innings and the sixth to win. North scored two in the first and one in the third.

“We did a great job of getting to their pitcher early,” Cusimano said. “We left a couple of guys out there in the first that we should have found ways to scratch in.”

North (14-15) beat Boylan 12-11 in its last conference game to knock the Titans out of a tie for the NIC-10 lead and beat Boylan again, this time 10-8, in the regional semifinals to get this far.

Class 4A: Hampshire 3, Hononegah 1

Louisville recruit Anthony Karbowski shut down the NIC-10 champions, who had won the school’s only two sectional titles in two of the previous three years. Hononegah (24-7) got stout pitching from Nolan Mabie and Jacob DeLeo but had two runners picked off, one off second and the other off first base.

“We had opportunities to beat a good team with their No. 1 going,” Honoengah coach Matt Simpson said. “We made some mistakes on the bases. Those are not things you can do against good teams and expect to win.”

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Last 4 Rockford baseball teams standing run into tough pitching