Class 3A baseball: Owen Wiers’ strong start helps Joliet Catholic top Kankakee for Pontiac Regional title

PONTIAC – Patience was indeed a virtue Saturday for the Joliet Catholic baseball team in the championship game of the Class 3A Pontiac Regional against Kankakee.

The Hilltoppers had just six hits, but they made them count as they took advantage of 10 walks and two hit batters by Kankakee pitchers and three fielding errors by the Kays to come away with an 11-1 win in five innings. The victory gives JCA (28-5), the two-time Class 2A defending state champion, its third consecutive regional crown.

JCA will face Dunlap at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in a Washington Sectional semifinal.

The beneficiary of all of the runs was starting pitcher Owen Wiers, who worked four innings and allowed just one hit and one walk while striking out seven. His teammates gave him a big cushion in the bottom of the first by scoring five runs. One came on an RBI double by Jake Troyner (1 for 1, 2 RBIs), another on an RBI single by Zach Pomatto (2 for 4, three RBIs), one on a double steal on which courtesy runner Drew Wills stole home and two on an error on a ball hit by John O’Brien.

“It definitely helps a lot to go out to the mound with a lead,” Wiers said. “I have a lot of confidence in our offense. With a lead like we had, it was easy to attack the strike zone and not have to worry about making a perfect pitch.

“I had a lot of confidence in my slider today. I was able to get some swinging strikeouts with it, and I was able to throw it for strikes when they didn’t swing.”

Of Wiers’ four innings, three times he retired the side in order. The only time Kankakee scored was in the top of the second. With two outs, Devin Arbour was hit by a pitch and a walk moved courtesy runner Kyrie Sykes to second. Alexander Grill followed with a flare to right that just eluded JCA second baseman O’Brien’s outstretched glove and Sykes came home to score.

JCA did not score in the second, but added two more in the third. With the bases loaded on walks to Keegan Farnaus and Matt Simmons sandwiched around a hit by pitch by O’Brien, Lucas Simulick walked to bring home Farnaus before Troyner missed a grand slam by just a few feet and settled for a sacrifice fly that scored O’Brien, making it 7-1.

After a scoreless fourth, the Hilltoppers ended it in the bottom of the fifth. O’Brien led off by reaching on an error and went to second on a walk by Simmons. The two pulled off a double steal, and Simulick followed with an RBI single to score O’Brien. Troyner was hit by a pitch to load the bases before Pomatto singled to right, bringing home Simmons and Simulick to make it 10-1. Zach Beitler followed with a drive to the fence in center, scoring courtesy runner Jack Ryan with the final run.

“We expect to make a deep run in the postseason,” JCA coach Jared Voss said. “But it’s still single-elimination and anything can happen. I give our hitters a lot of credit for being patient. A lot of high school kids get up with men on base and they want to be the hero and get the big hit, but our guys do what it takes for us to win. If that means taking a walk, then that’s what they do.

“Owen Wiers threw a great game for us. At this point of the year, you want strike-throwers out there. We saw in the second inning what can happen. A walk, a hit batter and a little flare and there’s a run. We didn’t have a lot of hits today, but we hit the ball hard quite often. Zach Pomatto smoked a liner right at the first baseman and Jake Troyner just missed getting one out. If we keep hitting the ball hard, we will be fine.”