Baseball: Wilmington overwhelmed by St. Anthony in Class 2A semifinal

PEORIA — There have been multiple times where Wilmington has given up runs early in games.

But the Wildcats have always been able to put a stop to it and get back into things.

But there was no stopping Effingham St. Anthony on Friday night in the IHSA Class 2A State Tournament semifinals at Dozer Park as the Bulldogs breezed to a 12-1 six-inning victory.

The loss snapped a 25-game winning streak for Wilmington (27-2) and dropped the WIldcats into the third-place game against Newman Central Catholic, which lost its semifinal to Maroa-Forsyth by an 11-1 score.

St. Anthony jumped right out of the box, collecting three hits against Lucas Rink and plating two runs with the big blow coming off the bat of St. Anthony’s Brock Fearday, who would prove to be a nemesis to Wilmington in more ways than one.

It wasn’t uncommon for Wilmington to face a deficit in the postseason as it had fallen behind in both the regional championship and sectional championship games.

But St. Anthony had no interest in letting them off the mat.

Wilmington did get one back in its half of the second inning on a Joe Allgood RBI single, but the Bulldogs went back in attack mode in the third inning immediately putting the Wildcats back on their heels when Fearday rapped a triple and singles from Sam Link and Connor Roepke quickly pushed the lead out to 6-1.

“I thought early on we were making OK contact with them. It wasn’t like he was throwing the ball past us,” Wilmington coach Mike Bushnell said. “What really threw me off was their offense. Just going through some of their games it looked like they liked to bunt in the back half of their lineup and when you tied in some of their averages it was hard to understand that was going to be the kind of offense that we saw today.”

Rink, who entered the game having allowed just four earned runs all season, quickly realized it wasn’t his day.

“The biggest problem today was not having my stuff,” Rink said. “My changeup usually has a little run to it, but it was pretty flat today. To have one of those days to not have my stuff it was not the right time to have that happen. But no discredit to them. They are a great hitting team and you can’t take that away from them.”

Fearday popped another triple in the the fourth as part of a two-run inning that stretched the St. Anthony lead to 8-1, but as impressive as his 3-for-3 day was at the plate the junior standout was even more of a menace to Wilmington on the mound.

“His offspeed was really good,” Wilmington shortstop/pitcher Ryan Kettman said of Fearday. “We started to get on his fastball and as soon as we got the timing down he just caught you with the changeup or the slider. He was a great pitcher. He was hard to hit.”

He allowed just four hits, all singles to Reid Juster, Allgood, Dierks Geiss and Rink, while striking out seven. Wilmington looked overmatched in many of the at bats against Fearday.

“I don’t know how that team has lost a game based on their performance today,” Bushnell said. “That was somethng like I’ve never seen. So hats off to them, their coach and the rest of that squad.”