Baseball: Wilmington shuts down Newman Central Catholic to take third in Class 2A

PEORIA — Wilmington did not put its best foot forward in the semifinal round at the IHSA Class 2A State Baseball Tournament on Friday night.

And after a resounding semifinal round loss to Effingham St. Anthony, head hanging would have been understandable heading into Saturday’s third place game against Newman Central Catholic,

But instead the Wildcats chose to focus on putting forth an effort that more resembled the spectacular season the Wildcats put together prior to Friday as it put together a sound all-around performance in a 4-0 victory over the Comets.

The third-place trophy is the school’s fourth in baseball giving them a pair of third-place trophies as they also finished third in 2003 to go along with state championships earned in 2002 and 2004.

“We came out ready to play, we were extremely loose,” Wilmington coach Mike Bushnell said. “Not only that way we played tomorrow, but how we came back from the way we played yesterday kind of shows what this time is.”

There are always many ways teams can approach third-place games and Wilmington was pretty certain the only option for them was to attack it head-on.

“Something like that [Friday night’s game] isn’t going to be easy to shake off, but at the end of the day you got another job to do and you can’t let that drag on you,” Wilmington shortstop Lucas Rink said. “You can’t let it affect you because that just affects everybody and hurts morale.”

Both offenses were quiet for the first two innings before Wilmington managed to string together some offense in the third.

Brendan Moran started things off by legging out an infield single and while he was wiped off the bases on a force out, Ryan Kettman made sure a double play wasn’t turned, then stole second and third base and ultimately scored on a wild pitch.

Rink restarted the rally with a clean single and eventually came around to score on a Newman Central Catholic error to put Wilmington up 2-0.

That was going to be all the offense that Kyle Farrell was going to need. The junior was once again dominant and saw no more than four batters in any inning, allowing just four hits. He struck out three and walked none.

Farrell didn’t lean on the strikeout as much as usual because he didn’t need to. Unlike Friday night, Wilmington’s defense made all the routine plays and a couple of rather solid ones to keep the Comets from ever getting anything going. That included the uncommon 1-4-6-3 double play that ended the game and protected Farrell’s complete game shutout.

“I felt good,” Farrell said about his outing. “It’s just really easy with my team behind me because I know they are going to make plays. Just having those guys behind me and have Cade [McCubbin] catching gives you great confidence in whatever you throw.”

Wilmington tacked on unnecessary insurance runs in the fourth and fifth innings.

In the fourth, Reid Juster ripped a double down the third base line, moved up to third on a wild pitch and scored on an RBI groundout from Dierks Geiss. In the fifth, Kettman singled, moved up a wild pitch and stole third base for the second time in the game before scoring when Sterling Newman’s defense believed they could throw out Kettman in the contact play with a drawn in infield, but Kettman beat the throw easily.

Wilmington finished the season 28-2 and had a 25-game winning streak snapped with the semifinal loss on Friday. And while several valued seniors are graduating, it’s not hard to envision a scenario where the Wildcats are in the mix to make a return to trip to Peoria.

All three of Wilmington’s top pitchers (Farrell, Rink and Kettman) are underclassmen and four of the five hitters at the top of the lineup are also returning to the fold.

“I think we just have to learn from it,” Rink said. “I think when we came into that first game they really got the best of us. But my expectation is to be right back here next year. We’re only going to get better.”