By Sean Duncan

JOLIET ? Kaneland didn?t even win its conference outright; rather, it shared the Northern Illinois Big 12 championship with Morris this season. The Knights have never even won a regional championship before.

Big deal.

Kaneland brought a much greater achievement back to Maple Park after it hammered Oak Forest 11-3 in the Class 3A state championship game Saturday afternoon at Silver Cross Field. 

Making the feat even more special was no one even gave Kaneland (26-10) much consideration to do anything in the playoffs, much less with it all.

?We were really comfortable being the underdog,? said third baseman and right-handed pitcher Bobby Thorson, an unsigned senior who earned the Porsche Player of the Week earlier in the season. ?We were really loose because it felt like we weren?t playing for anything.

?Once we won the regional title we felt like we got over the hump.?

The Knights did more than just get over the hump; they climbed the mountain.

 ?This is the best feeling in the world to bring home the first state championship in school history,? said senior second baseman Brian Dixon, the team?s No. 8 hitter who went 3-for-4 with four RBI. ?I couldn?t ask for anything more. ? This is a dream come true.?

Clutch two-out hitting. Check-swing doubles. Infield singles. Everything seemed to work for Kaneland against an Oak Forest (27-8-1) team that had only two seniors on its roster.

?We had a lot of things go our way,? said Thorson, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI, including a check-swing, run-scoring double. ?I tried to keep karma on our side throughout the entire playoffs, and it paid off, I guess.?

Kaneland (26-10) had more than karma going its way. The Knights pounded out 13 hits, six coming from the bottom three hitters in the lineup, against four Oak Forest pitchers.

After Oak Forest scored two runs in the fourth inning to take a 2-1 advantage, Kaneland came right back in the bottom half of the inning to reclaim the lead, 3-2, on consecutive two-out, run-scoring singles by right fielder Jake Razo (2-for-3, two RBI) and Dixon.

Then the Knights put the game away in the fifth when they erupted for six runs. At one point, seven of eight Kaneland hitters delivered hits, including Thorson?s check-swing double to right field, a bloop double by Razo and an infield single by centerfielder Joe Camiliere (3-for-4, three runs). First baseman Sam Komel delivered the big hit, a two-run single. Oak Forest used three pitchers in the inning. By that time Kaneland led 9-2.

Game over.

?Hats off to our guys for hitting the snot out of the ball the last two games,? said Kaneland coach Brian Aversa, whose team closed out the season winning its last 13 games.

Oak Forest, which was seeking its first championship since 1985, squandered several scoring opportunities early on, including a second-and-third situation in the first inning. The Bengals finally broke through against junior left-hander Drew Peters (5-1) in the fourth inning when sophomore designated hitter Jason Hine delivered a two-out, two-run single to give Oak Forest a brief 2-1 lead.

Right-hander Kyle Davidson pitched the final three innings, allowing four hits and one run, to secure Kaneland?s surprising championship.

Junior catcher John Zubek went 3-for-4 with a run to pace Oak Forest, and freshman right fielder Brian Richard and senior shortstop Bobby Sheppard each had two hits.

?This year has been such an amazing season,? said Sheppard, a UIC recruit. ?We have come so far. There is no shame in winning the second-place trophy. I wouldn?t trade it for the world.?

In the Class 3A third-place game:

Waterloo piled on five runs in the first inning and never looked back in defeating Nazareth 6-1 at Silver Cross Field.

 

Nazareth (34-7), which won the IHSBCA summer state championship in July, finished fourth in state in its first state finals appearance.

 

After losing to Oak Forest 3-1 in the semifinals, chiefly because of one calamitous inning in which it committed three errors, Nazareth suffered through another rough inning against Waterloo (33-4).

 

Only this time it was in the first inning. Waterloo opened the bottom of the first with five consecutive hits against junior left-hander Dominic Purpura (10-2).  Mix in an error, and Nazareth was down 5-0 before the Roadrunners knew it.

 

Waterloo?s left-handed hitting first baseman Garrett Schlecht, who was a ninth-round draft pick by the Chicago Cubs, had a run-scoring single amid the Bulldogs? five-straight hits. Schlecht finished 2-for-3 with an intentional walk and a run scored.

 

Alex Wittenauer (6-0) earned the win, pitching four innings in relief, allowing three hits. Right fielder Gabe Hopkins had two hits for Waterloo.