High school baseball: Hampshire defeats Cary-Grove to reach supersectional

McHENRY – Hampshire thoroughly has embraced its underdog role of a team that finished the regular season three games above .500 and sixth in the Fox Valley Conference.

The coaches have tossed around quotes from “Rocky” and “Creed” to inspire the Whip-Purs. Head coach Frank Simoncelli could not stop talking about the heart his team showed.

Like the fourth inning when starter Logan Nespor, with the bases loaded, threw away a double-play ball that let in two runs, then fanned the next three Cary-Grove batters to leave two runners on.

Or in the bottom of the seventh when sophomore Dylan Petrey gave up a home run to Trojans star Quinn Priester, which shrank the lead to one run, then allowed a two-out triple to Dymitri Kanellakis.

“I wasn’t worried,” Whips shortstop Gavin Kriegel said. “I knew Petrey had him. He’s closed out three or four of these games, and we knew he was going to get it done.”

Kriegel was right. Petrey got C-G’s Bobby Jannusch on a line drive to second baseman Caden Pyszka, and Hampshire held off the Trojans, 5-4, for the Class 4A McHenry Sectional championship Saturday at Petersen Park.

Hampshire (21-14) faces Oak Park-River Forest (23-12) at 5 p.m. in the Schaumburg Supersectional No. 1 at Boomers Stadium. The Huskies defeated Glenbrook South, 7-3, Saturday for the Loyola Academy Sectional title.

“We’ve battled, every pitch from playing Harlem in the first round – we went nine innings – to the last out here,” Simoncelli said. “I’m just so proud of this team and so proud for this community. We’re believing right now. We’ve kind of been the underdogs. We said, ‘Let’s just come out ready to swing,’ and today we did it.”

The Whips took a big step toward their first supersectional appearance since 2008, when they won a Class 2A sectional, with four hits in the first inning. Matt Jachec and Kriegel each had RBI singles. Hampshire took a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the fourth inning.

C-G (23-14) got two runs on Nespor’s error in the fourth, but the senior right-hander, who has three postseason victories, limited the damage by striking out the side.

“In a game like this, I’m just trying to pitch my heart out,” said Nespor, who struck out seven in six innings when he reached the IHSA pitch-count limit. “I knew that the game came down to it, and I needed to get the job done. My stuff was working. I just went with it.”

C-G added a run in the fifth on Jacob Duncan’s triple and Ryan Weaver’s double, making it 5-3. That was the only earned run off Nespor.

The Trojans’ Ethan Estes threw 3 1/3 scoreless relief innings to keep C-G close.

With one out in the seventh, Priester got a 2-0 pitch to his liking from Petrey and hit it off the scoreboard in right-center field to make it a one-run game.

“We made mistakes early, which will kill you in the postseason,” Priester said. “But we showed resiliency, and we were in it the whole game. I was up, 2-0, and I was like, ‘If I get a fastball, I’m swinging as hard as I can, and it ended up going pretty far.”

Trojans coach Ryan Passaglia just smiled at Priester’s last at-bat.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “What a career. Great person, great kid.”

Petrey then struck out Drew Stengren for the second out, and Kanellakis drove an 0-1 pitch to right-center for a triple. Petrey then got Jannusch out on the line drive to Pyszka.

“We didn’t lose that game in the seventh inning,” Passaglia said. “We just made too many mistakes early in the game and got behind. We played great [in the postseason]. We were struggling for a while [late in the regular season] and came back and got hot, and things were falling our way a little bit. We just didn’t do enough to win today. I give them a lot of credit. They played a good, solid baseball game.”

STAR OF THE GAME

Logan Nespor

Hampshire, sr., P

Nespor threw six innings, allowing five hits and one earned run, while striking out seven as the Whip-Purs won their first sectional title since 2008, when they were in Class 2A.

THE NUMBER

3: Diving catches made by Hampshire: two by right fielder Nick Sladek and one by shortstop Gavin Kriegel.

AND ANOTHER THING ...

Cary-Grove senior Quinn Priester, who is projected to be selected in the first round of Monday’s MLB First-Year Player Draft, signed baseballs for youngsters for several minutes after the game.

Class 4A McHenry Sectional Championship

Hampshire 5, Cary-Grove 4

Hampshire 201 200 0 – 5 9 2

Cary-Grove 000 210 1 – 4 7 2

WP: Logan Nespor, 6-2 (6IP, 5H, 3R, 1ER, 4BB, 7K). Save: Dylan Petrey. LP: Jack Wenninger, 6-3 (3.2IP, 7H, 5R, 4ER, 1BB, 4K).

Top hitters–Hampshire: Andy Krajecki 1-2 (2B, RBI, 2R), Matt Jachec 2-4 (2B, RBI, R), Gavin Kriegel 2-3 (RBI), John Brady Young 1-2 (R). Cary-Grove: Ryan Weaver 2-4 (2B, RBI, R), Quinn Priester 1-3 (HR, RBI, R), Dymitri Kanellakis 1-4 (3B), Jacob Duncan 1-1 (3B, R).