Lane Tech Tops Lincoln Park 4-1

[Preview of this week’s article in Inside-Booster.]

By Jack Lydon

“Something special is happening with @LTBaseball (19-4) this season.”

That was a tweet by Benjamin Wong, a Lane Tech baseball parent, lawyer and Lane’s LSC president after the Champions’ 8-0 victory over Stevenson.

Lane is having a special season indeed. After a rough start, the Champions have put together a string of nineteen straight wins, dominating every team in the Chicago Public League and chalking up nice wins against 4A powerhouses, Loyola Academy, Glenbrook North, Evanston, New Trier and Stevenson.

Their only losses came in the first five games of the season and that “was with a whole different lineup when we were still figuring things out,” in the words of Lane Tech head coach Sean Freeman.

Friday afternoon’s game was tied 1-1 after four and a half innings and looked like that string might come to an end at the hands of Northside rival Lincoln Park and their sophomore pitcher rising star Rio Francois.

It was clear early on that the Champions were experiencing something of a letdown after the long string of victories and the recent 8-0 shellacking of 4A powerhouse Stevenson. The Champions had four strikes looking—call third strikes. The which ended innings, very unusual for the normal aggressive Champion hitters.

“That is one thing I was not pleased with at all. Our lack of focus and energy today, that’s were that shows up,” Freeman admitted.

“I thought we played some good small ball. Rory Irwin laid down two great punts. Sometimes when it’s not your day, you’ve got to find a way to make it happen and he did that. Which is a huge help for our offense.”

It sounds bad but it really wasn’t. The Champions never really seemed in danger of losing. Lane’s pitchers Alex Delaney and Hunter Smith had things in hand. While they had base runners in the early innings, a big inning never materialized, nor did it even seemed like it would.

Tied 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning, Luke Kam walked and stole second. Rory Irwin cracked a sharp grounder to short which went right under the fielder’s glove scoring Kam from second. Paris Head then walked and later scored on Alex Ziegler’s single. The Champions manufactured two runs and would go on to win 4-1.

Very good teams find a way to win when they are emotionally down. Very good teams find a way to win when lesser teams find a way to lose.

Ben Wong and his tweet got it right. This is a good team, a special team. Ben Wong should know his Champions. He has had three sons play baseball at Lane for Sean Freeman. His middle son Ryan was a star pitcher for the Champions who later played baseball at Caltech and now works for the Chicago Cubs baseball operations group tracking player performance at all levels of Cubs teams. Baseball is quite scientific now, thanks, in part, to former Champions.

St. Patrick Beats Carmel 70-43

SHAMROCKS STAY IN ESCC RACE WITH HOME WIN OVER CARMEL

SPORTS SPOTLIGHT BY JOHN MONTGOMERY 

One of the goals for varsity basketball team at St Patrick is to win East Suburban Catholic Conference basketball championship in its final season. The Shamrocks (21-4, 5-1) moved a step closer with 70-43 win over Carmel (9-18, 2-6) last Friday night. 

“Our name would be carved in gold but it would be a co-championship,” senior RJ McPartlin said after the latest victory. “It would be a tremendous thing.”

The ESCC will merge with the Catholic League next school year in basketball.

Top ranked Benet (26-1, 6-0) is going for fourth straight title, and Redwings stayed in sole possession of first place with a victory over Notre Dame. Marist (23-4,4-1) and St.Viator (18-8, 4-2) stayed alive for share of excellence in ESCC with wins as well.

“It would mean the world to me and our program to win the league in its final season,” St Patrick head coach Mike Bailey admitted. “I love the ESCC. The schools are all very similar. We have two road games left. We are treating next two games as championship week. We have to take care of business.”

There was very little drama on Friday against Carmel who has one of the state's best football players sophomore inebacker Jameer Myles on its roster. Shamrocks jumped out to a 13-2 lead before putting the Corsairs away in the third quarter by scoring 27 points. In fact the only issue for St Patrick was Shamrocks played critical conference clash without Joey Costanzo who was sick. 

Maurice Neeley led Shamrocks with 19 points while Omar Ajanovic added 17 points.

Ethan Matz led Carmel with 10 points.

Neeley is very underrated player but plays important role for St Pat's. The senior guard is point man on its defense while starting the offense for Shamrocks.

“As important as the other players are on our team he is the glue for our team,” Bailey said. “He means so much to our basketball team. He does a little bit of everything for us.”

“He is tough as nails,” McPartlin stated. ‘He is not a selfish guy. He’s a good teammate.”

St Patrick closed the weekend with a 74-42 win over Jones College Prep from Chicago PublicLeague. The victory was a milestone for Bailey who won his 700th varsity basketball game. Bailey has now won 604 games with Shamrocks in 32 seasons.

“It's a nice accomplishment,” Bailey said. “For me it is always about having great assistant coaches and players. Very blessed to have great families and basketball players in our program at St Patrick. I have a very supportive administration at St Patrick. The most important thing for me is our students and basketball players.”

The state basketball playoff pairings will released this Friday. Shamrocks will be in Class 4A at Loyola sectional with defending Class 3A champion DePaul Prep, Evanston, and Loyola. St Pat's is seeking third straight trip to the Elite Eight after finishing third in Class 3A last season.

DePaul Prep Defeats Marist 59-43 at When Sides Collide

People are sitting around waiting for the Rams to lose but they keep winning. The penultimate game at this year’s When Sides Collide shootout at Benet featured the No. 2 ranked DePaul Prep Rams (20-3, 6-0) against the No. 7 ranked Marist Red Hawks (19-3, 2-0). This game and the following game between Benet and Warren might have resulted in a shakeup of the rankings and impact on the upcoming seeding for the 4A state playoffs.  

Had Marist taken down DePaul Prep and Warren overcome Benet No. 1 and No. 2 would have to be replaced. There was actually very little explicit discussion about such a scenario before the games amongst the collected observers, but it was obviously on everyone’s mind.

Maybe it’s just a yearning to see an underdog win or perhaps just a boredom with stagnant rankings and storylines that fuels such thoughts. DePaul Prep and Benet would have none of it. The Rams and Redwings put up convincing wins in the face of tough challenges.

The Marist Red Hawks opened the season at No. 4 and have moved between three and seven ever since. The Red Hawks, a skilled veteran group, have run through their schedule including wins over No. 10 Evanston and Brother Rice. Top ESCC matchups against St. Patrick and Benet have yet to be played.

The Rams however, have fought through a formidable schedule with their only losses coming at the hands of No. 1 Benet in the Pontiac Championship game, national powerhouse La Lumiere in the Chicago Elite Classic and Arlington, Virginia’s Bishop O’Connell, in their own Pappas Shootout in overtime. The Rams opened the season at No. 1 and dropped to No. 2 after the loss to Benet.

There was a little controversy, at least in my head, about the point total for DePaul Prep’s Rykan Woo. I am a little sensitive about this since I initially misreported Woo’s point total after the Mount Carmel game. I had him with 26 points including four three-pointers. Another guy had him with 24 so that is what I reported. Matt Now also had him with 26. I went back and added up my totals again and it shows 26. That’s what I am going with—26.

It was a close game until the Rams broke it open in the fourth quarter with five inside points and free throws by senior forward Rashaun Porter and, of course, 13 of Woo’s 26 points including 3 three-point coffin nails in the final couple minutes. Rams 59, Red Hawks 43.

Seven games left for the Rams. First and foremost are Brother Rice and St. Laurence to salt away the Chicago Catholic League. Then Deerfield, Christ the King, IC, Warren, and finally Ridgewood.

No. 6. Warren will be an obvious challenge with the best player in the state, Jaxson Davis. This could be a preview of a state final game but the seedings will be out by then so it won’t affect that. A final tune-up to a four-peat.

If the past is any guide, the Rams will finish. Champions finish.