No. 1 Providence prevails to win WJOL Invite title

By Drake Skleba

JOLIET - Talking with the Celtics of Providence Catholic shortly before the start of the 6th Annual WJOL Area Invite, they wanted to bring the championship team trophy home to New Lenox. Providence junior center fielder Brady Wilkin helped realize their goal by ripping  a walk-off single, scoring junior Branden Boggetto, in the bottom of the seventh to lift No. 1 Providence Catholic to a 4-3 win over Will County-rival Joliet Catholic Academy.

?I just trusted in my teammates and they helped me out and put me in a good situation for me to help,? said Wilkin. ? I was fortunate to be able to hit the ball and get winning run home. We really wanted to take home this championship. It feels great.?

For Providence (6-0), this was the Celtics? second WJOL Area Invite crown, having won the 2007 championship.

Joliet Catholic (3-2) scored two runs in the second inning to take an early 2-0 lead.
Senior LF Luke Swanson singled home sophomore Chris Tschida, who had walked.
Sophomore Ryan Peter drove in senior Matt Wolz, who had singled, with a sac-fly
for a 2-0 Hillman lead.

Providence scored three times in the bottom of the third. Wilken singled home a pair to tie things up at 2.

?I was fortunate to be seeing the ball real well tonight,? said Wilkin, who is verbally committed to Bradley University.

Porsche Player of the Week 3B Sam Travis crushed a triple, scoring Wilkin and the Celtics led 3-2.

?We really played well in this tournament,? said Travis.? ?Kevin DeFilippis made one of the greatest catches I have ever seen to save the game for us in the top of the seventh. I hit the ball well tonight but I owe it to my teammates for doing their part in winning this championship.?

Providence senior starting RHP Dan Wetzel mowed the Hillmen down through the seventh. After getting the first two men out in the top of the seventh, JCA mounted their last stand.

Leadoffman Nate Searing singled. Senior Cody Columbus hit a towering drive to left-center. Wilkin made a long run and appeared to have caught the ball but at the last minute dropped it. Columbus was credited with a hit.

Providence head coach Mark Smith removed Wetzel for University of Indiana-bound LHP Collin McEnery (1-0). JCA senior 3B Kyle Cunningham greeted McEnery with a game-tying single, scoring Searing and we were tied at 3. JCA sophomore C Alex Voitek battled McEnery for a base on balls. Tschida laced a drive that appeared to be ticketed for right field and a 5-3 Hillmen lead. But the Notre Dame-bound DeFilippis flew through the air and knocked down the drive, picked himself up and threw Tschida out for the third out of the inning.

?I had to make the play for my team,? said DeFilippis. ?I hit the ball good tonight. This is really great to have won this tournament championship.?

In the bottom of the seventh, junior Kenny King pinch-hit for Boggetto and was walked. Boggetto re-entered and ran for King. Senior DH Central Michigan-bound Matt Trowbridge laid down a beautiful sac-bunt, moving Boggetto to second.

DeFilippis was walked intentionally. Wilkin followed with the game-winner and the Celtics were 2011 Joliet Area Invite champs.

?Everyone really played well for us to achieve our goal of winning this tournament,?
said Smith. ?We will enjoy this championship tonight and tomorrow and then get back to work on Monday. There is still an awful lot of baseball to be played.?

Ferry Named Tournament MVP
Lemont?s Josh Ferry was named the unanimous winner of the 2011 WJOL Area Invite Most Valuable Player award. All Ferry did was throw a six-inning perfect game with nine strikeouts against Minooka in the quarterfinals on Friday. Ferry was 6-for-10 in three tournament games with one homer, of the walk-off variety, against Lockport and four RBI.

Third place Game
Lemont 7, Lockport 5
What could Josh Ferry do for an encore?  After throwing a perfect game at Minooka on Friday, Lemont?s University of Illinois-bound Josh Ferry had another surprise up his sleeve in the battle for third place between No. 8 Lemont and No. 27 Lockport.

After Lockport (4-2) had rallied from a 5-2 deficit and tied the game at 5, the battle moved to the bottom of the seventh. With a tournament time curfew on them, the Indians would have to score in their half the seventh or the game would be determined by the strikeout tie-breaker.

Michigan state-bound SS Kevin Goergen would single and Ferry would follow with a shot off an advertising billboard above the right-field wall. Everyone in the ballpark
knew Ferry had just hit a two-run walk-off homer except the two men in blue. After a short discussion, the umpires ruled that Ferry?s blast was indeed a home run. Lemont (4-3) had just won 7-5.

Semifinal One: Joliet Catholic 4, Lockport 3
In a WJOL Area Invite semifinal at Lockport, Joliet Catholic Academy hung on to defeat Lockport 4-3. In a game that had numerous great defensive plays, numerous wild pitches and passed balls, clutch two-out RBI hits, and a few defensive miscues; a cornucopia of the best and worst of how baseball is to be played, JCA (3-1) survived.

This one started out really ugly, as JCA scored a pair of runs against Lockport starting pitcher Mike Hamilton (1-1) on a wild pitch and a balk. Hamilton threw three wild pitches in the inning.

In the JCA second, with two outs and two Hilltoppers on, Porter sophomore Ted Snidanko made a great grab in left field to rob JCA senior 3B Kyle Cunningham and save the Porters two runs. Cunningham was the JCA hero in the quarterfinals when he launched a two-run walk-off homer to beat Plainfield South 4-3 on Friday.

Lockport (4-1) picked up an unearned run against JCA winning pitcher junior Kevin Duchene (1-0), in the second, Hamilton settled down and the game was 2-1 entering the fifth.

Both teams put single tallies on the board in the fifth and sixth. JCA scored on a sac-fly from senior LF Luke Swanson in the fifth and senior CF Cody Columbus singled home a run in the sixth.

Lockport answered with a clutch two-out RBI single from St. Joseph College-bound 2B Matt Skrzypiec in the fifth. In the sixth, Porter sophomore Mike Hines made it 4-3 with another two-out RBI single, to close out the sixth.

JCA head coach Jared Voss went to his bullpen and brought in Friday nights winning pitcher junior Nate Searing, to face the Porters in the seventh. The Porters put their lead-off man on but Searing bore down and retired the next three hitters to pick up his first save of 2011.

?I had a tough day at the plate, but the team needed me,? said Searing. ? I was able to shake off the bad day at the plate and bore down and nailed down the save.?

Duchene (1-0) allowed two earned runs in his six-inning stint striking out eight Porter hitters.

?My defense was excellent today,? said Duchene. ?I thought I pitched well. We scrap and clawed offensively today. Looking forward to playing Providence tonight. We ?ll scrap and claw and battle them. They are a great team but don?t count us out. We?re fighters.?

Duchene?s battery-mate sophomore C Alex Voitik had a 3-for-4 game for JCA and had a fine game behind the plate.

?We had a great game today. Our pitchers were lights out,? sa d Voitik. ?We played a little small ball today offensively and everything worked out. i am really looking forward to tonight?s championship game with Providence.?

Cody Columbus, Adam Collins and Zach Melone all chipped in with two hits for the Hilltoppers.

?We have to battle to score runs. That will be our M.O. all season,? said Voss. ?Kevin (Duchene) and Nate (Searing) were tough on the mound for us. Alex Voitik is a young kid behind the plate who has a lot of energy and works hard.?

Snidanko hammered a pair of doubles and drove in a run for the Porters. Mike Hines, Matt Skrzypiec and John Kosmowski all had two hits for Lockport.

?We had a bad first inning and could not recover from it,? said Lockport first-year head coach Andy Satunas. ?We can?t give runs away to good teams and expect to win.?

Semifinal 2 - No. 1 Providence (5-0) defeated No. 8 Lemont (3-3) for the second time in 10 days, in a semifinal match-up in Minooka. On March 23 Providence defeated Lemont 6-1 and on Saturday, the Celtics  duplicated their five-run margin, winning 7-2.

The star for top-ranked Providence was Central Michigan-bound senior LHP Matt Trowbridge (1-0). Trowbridge was spectacular. The future Chippeawa shutout Lemont over the first five innings of the game, allowing one hit and striking out 13. Through the first four innings every Lemont out was a Trowbridge strikeout. That?s right. Twelve  Ks. Trowbridge picked up No. 13 and turned things over to the Celtic bullpen.

Lemont, elated to see Trowbridge leave, scored twice against the Celtic pen. Ferry had two hits and an RBI for Lemont.

In the fifth-place game, Plainfield South (4-2)  defeated Minooka 11-10 in six-innings. Minooka falls to 5-3.  In the battle for seventh, Plainfield Central (1-5) crushed Joliet Central (1-6) by a 14-0 margin in five-innings.

In consolation action Saturday morning, Minooka edged Plainfield Central 2-1 and
Plainfield South defeated Joliet Central 4-3 in eight innings.