4A baseball: Providence Catholic walks off Homewood-Flossmoor in extra innings to reach sectionals

NEW LENOX – One play. Sometimes, that’s what the game comes down to.

From one point of view, Providence Catholic and Homewood-Flossmoor made a lot of plays that determined the direction of Saturday morning’s Class 4A Providence Catholic Regional final. From another, neither team could make a play until the eighth inning, when the Vikings seemed to make the only one they’d need.

It wound up coming down to one play, the last play of the game and the one that sent Providence Catholic to the sectional semifinals.

After a classic pitchers’ duel through the first seven innings, Homewood-Flossmoor scored a run in the top of the eighth to position itself for a victory before the Celtics responded in the bottom half. Then, with two outs, Blake Jenner’s single got away from the Vikings’ third baseman, and Cooper Eggert went running. The throw home looked to be well in time, and the game seemed destined for a ninth inning.

But the catcher never got a clean grasp on the ball. Eggert slid in, and the catcher dropped the ball. Eggert was safe, the Vikings were beaten, and Providence Catholic was the regional champion with a 2-1 victory.

Providence (28-8) did what all great playoff teams know how to do: survive and advance. Nate O’Donnell pitched about as good a game as anyone could ask for, allowing three hits and two walks with a pair of strikeouts in seven innings of work. The raw numbers for the offense were strong, too, as the Celtics compiled 10 hits on the day. However, the hits didn’t amount to any runs until the added eighth inning.

The defense, meanwhile, committed five errors to put the Celtics in a couple of dangerous situations. As coach Mark Smith noted after the game, however, the defense always seemed to rebound after a mistake, and the offense came through when dealing with the most adversity the team had faced all season.

“It was not one of our best games defensively, and we made a lot of mistakes,” Smith said. “Nate pitched his butt off. He kept us in the game when the bats weren’t working.

“I told the kids that postseason baseball isn’t about how many hits you get, it’s about when you get them. Too many times we had runners in scoring position and couldn’t get that hit. ... Overall, my thoughts are survive and advance.”

The Celtics nearly didn’t manage it.

After seven scoreless innings, Providence answered the Vikings’ first run, loading the bases with one out when Eddie Olszta hit a sacrifice fly to score O’Donnell. Eggert was nearly out at second attempting to run for third, but he caught a break making it back to second.

Jenner stepped up to bat with two outs from there, hit one toward third, and the rest was all Eggert to give the Celtics the regional trophy.

“I’ve been dreaming of these big moments,” Jenner said. “I was just trying to do something good for this team and put another number on that board.”

Eggert had his mind focused on one thing only as well.

“I’m seeing a ball that’s down, and I’m scoring,” he said. “No matter what. I’m knocking that ball out if I have to. I’m scoring no matter what.”

O’Donnell, Jenner, Enzo Infelise and Mitch Voltz each had two hits on the day, with Voltz’s double the only extra-base hit of the game.

Next up, Providence will play Andrew at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at Providence Catholic. The Celtics will take survive and advance all day, but they’ll also hope to do a little bit more than that the next time out.

“We did not play well today,” O’Donnell said. “We got it done. Survive and advance, but we’ve got to play better in the future or we’re not going to make it that far. We’ve got to do better.”