Benet senior pitcher John Boyle and Waubonsie Valley junior third baseman Sam Carius were recently named to the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association's all-state team.
Boyle, who will throw for Creighton next season, went 8-2 with a 1.51 ERA. Carius, a unanimous all-Upstate Eight Conference pick, hit .431 with 31 RBI.
West Aurora senior outfielder Brady Renner - son of Robin, the Neuqua Valley head coach - was also selected for the Class 3A/4A team.
West Aurora senior outfielder Brady Renner - the son of Robin, Neuqua Valley's head coach - was selected to the second team. Wheaton North's Jack DeAno made the first team.
--From Prep Baseball Report guru Sean Duncan, here's more on the pitcher who eliminated Naperville Central in the supersectional round:
O'Fallon junior right-hander Miles Quintal won't light up any radar guns, but the kid knows how to pitch. He improved to 11-2 with his complete-game victory in the Class 4A third-place game. Quintal already has 22 career wins.
--Our all-city baseball package will be running later this month.
Neuqua Valley's Alexa Gaul was one of three goalkeepers on the list, and Waubonsie Valley's Bri Rodriguez was one of 12 midfielders. Both girls are seniors.
Within this column, we mentioned an ESPN.com scouting report on Oakland draft pick Ian Krol out of Neuqua Valley. Here's the Insider link, which is excerpted below:
"(Krol's) fastball is consistently 88-90 mph; most have good tailing life but he can run it in on a right-hander's hands. His changeup is 76-78 with a lot of fading action, while his curveball has good depth and some two-plane break, but he prefers to pitch off his fastball and change. His command and control are both good for a high school pitcher, and he was dominant in three outings in the scout league this spring, although rainouts made him tough for scouts to see. He stays over the rubber well and separates his hands high to keep his arm action short. His stride is long and he finishes in good position to field a ball back at him. He's not big and doesn't have great physical projection, but if he does add a couple of mph to his fastball despite that, he could have a No. 3 starter upside."
Oakland selected Neuqua Valley pitcher Ian Krol in the seventh round of the first-year player draft on Wednesday. The 6-foot-1-inch, 180-pound left-hander was the 213th overall pick. Krol has already signed a letter of intent with Arizona.
For some background on Krol, check out this column in Wednesday's paper.
We are admittedly late posting this, but as a reader pointed out last week, The Courier News has the entire all-Upstate Eight Conference baseball team listed here. The local representatives are:
Mike McKinley, Neuqua Valley, senior pitcher Ryan Wagner, Neuqua Valley, senior second baseman Joe Ippolito, Neuqua Valley, junior outfielder Mike Gerber, Neuqua Valley, junior outfielder
Kris Singh, Waubonsie Valley, junior first baseman *Sam Carius, Waubonsie Valley, junior third baseman *Kevin Kirchner, Waubonsie Valley, senior outfielder
LOCKPORT -- No matter what, Pat Kaminska was probably going to be the last batter A.J. Woynerowski faced on Saturday in Lockport. As it turned out, Providence Catholic had five fresh arms available for this Class 4A sectional, and it was prepared to use them all.
The plan was working. Woynerowski had pitched a scoreless seventh following another middle reliever, John Ciolkosz, who gave up one unearned run in four innings of hitless ball.
If not for Kaminska's walk-off homer in the eighth inning, perhaps we would be talking about Providence Catholic's fifth straight comeback victory in this bracket. Three times the Celtics (21-16) erased 6-2 deficits, and in the sectional semifinal they scored four runs in the seventh to stun Neuqua Valley.
"Look how we went down," Providence Catholic coach Mark Smith said after a 5-4 loss. "Same thing that got us here -- we fought, we fought, we fought. We gave it everything we had (until) the last out."
Naperville Central coach Bill Seiple was out in Lockport scouting the Neuqua Valley-Providence Catholic sectional semifinal and had an interesting observation as to why Wednesday night's game was so low-scoring, and a theory about why his Redhawks broke through in the middle innings Thursday night.
"This is a very tough place to play, and when you play at 6 p.m., you got that shadow," Seiple said after a 6-2 victory over Lockport. "Neuqua and Providence (both) struggled all night long. And I don't know how (well) they saw the ball out of the pitchers' hands.
"It's not something you want to talk about, because then it gets crazy, people start thinking about it. ... I was concerned about it (but) we adjusted."
Seiple was looking forward to Saturday's first pitch at 10 a.m.
Providence Catholic had already rallied from 6-2 deficits three times in three regional victories, so the Celtics didn't need to panic against Neuqua Valley on Wednesday night in Lockport. Ron Kremer of the Herald News has more on the comeback here.
"We're comfortable when we're behind now," said Tim Hanrahan, who delivered the two-run single in the seventh that gave the Celtics a 3-1 lead. "I think there's not a kid in the dugout who doesn't want to be the guy up in that situation in the seventh inning. It's any of us that can come through in the clutch. It's an awesome feeling to do it over and over again. Everyone's hitting their stride at the right time, and we're playing our best baseball in the playoffs."
DARIEN - Neuqua Valley waited three days to play a game that was postponed twice. But then things started happening real quick in this regional championship. Neuqua has less than 24 hours to enjoy it.
The Wildcats fell behind by five runs, and then scored 14 unanswered to knock out No. 4 Plainfield North with a 15-6 victory on Tuesday in Darien. No. 5 Neuqua (25-11) advances to face No. 16 Providence Catholic (20-15) tonight in the semifinals of the Class 4A Lockport Sectional.
Jordan Williamson hit two solo home runs against the Tigers (27-7). Joe Ippolito lifted the solo home run in the fifth that gave Neuqua the go-ahead run and a 7-6 lead. The next inning saw Alex Lincoln add a two-run shot.
With that type of production throughout the lineup, Mike McKinley (6-3) received some breathing room. The Indiana recruit recovered from a rocky start -- he gave up back-to-back homers in the third -- and began relying more on his curveball. McKinley retired the final 12 batters he faced in a complete-game effort, finishing with 10 strikeouts.
No. 5 Neuqua Valley and No. 4 Plainfield North, which were originally scheduled to play for a regional championship on Saturday, will have to keep waiting. Monday's regional championship game was postponed to Tuesday. If the weather's clear, game time is set for 4:30 p.m. at Hinsdale South. The winner advances to face No. 16 Providence Catholic on Wednesday in the semifinals of the Class 4A Lockport Sectional.
Brad Engel is the longest-tenured member of The Sun sports staff and has won several national and state awards in his coverage of preps as well as the Chicago Bears, Chicago Fire and general sports.
Patrick Mooney
Patrick Mooney covered politics, prep sports and professional baseball for several print and online media outlets before joining The Sun in August 2007. He concentrates on prep sports, writing features, profiles and breaking recruiting news.
