By Drake Skleba

 

BLOOMINGTON - For Mahomet-Seymour’s 6-foot-4, 205-pound left-handed pitcher Jason Ziegler, his ability to foretell the future is just about as good as his ability to throw his hard fastball. A week ago back at school, Ziegler told Bulldog head coach Nic DiFilippo that he would throw his first career no-hitter in the semifinals of the Cornbelt Conference Tournament.

 

On Friday night, the hard-throwing junior did just that. In the first semifinal game of the Cornbelt Conference Tournament at beautiful Horenberger Field at Illinois Wesleyan University, Ziegler fired a no-hitter at Normal U-High in leading the Bulldogs to a 6-0 victory. Ziegler also hit his eighth home run of the season as well.

 

“This was the first no-hitter of my career,” said Ziegler, who improved to 6-1. “I was really nervous in the seventh. My defense was great and I had a great curveball tonight and had command of all of my pitches. I got a 3-2 fastball and really crushed it for the home run.”

 

The Bulldogs scored three times in the second on a pair of clutch two-out RBI hits from senior second baseman Josh Menacher and junior shortstop Rogan Kipp. The third run was scored on an errant U-High throw on Kipp’s single.

 

“We worked very hard to win the conference,” said Menacher. “I was really happy to get the first run home. Being a senior, I am one of our leaders and have to play well. Jason is an incredible pitcher.”

 

In the bottom of the third, Mahomet Seymour senior right fielder Brannon Kwiatkowski launched a rocket over the right field fence for his 14^th home run of the season. The 14^th home run set a new Mahomet-Seymour single season home run record for Kwiatkowski. The previous record was 13, held by none other than DiFillipo. Ziegler’s blast was back-to-back with Kwiatkowski in the third.

 

“It was pretty crazy to break the home run record of Coach DiFilippo’s,” said Kwiatkowski. “Jason was outstanding and it was a little crazy, again with the no-hitter. We won the regular season and we want to win the whole thing tomorrow.”

 

Mahomet-Seymour (19-7) concluded the scoring in the fifth on a sac-fly by Ziegler.

 

Normal U-High (14-10) starting pitcher sophomore Jacob Hendren (2-3) allowed only four hits in his complete-game performance.

 

“Not too much to say when you get no-hit,” said Normal U-High head coach Greg Bee. “Jason Ziegler is a great pitcher and really shut us down. What a tremendous curveball he possesses.”

 

Mahomet-Seymour,the regular season Cornbelt champs, advance to Saturday night’s Cornbelt Conference championship game at Illinois Wesleyan University. The Bulldogs will meet two-time defending Class 2A champs Stanford Olympia (22-7), which defeated Bloomington Central Catholic 5-3 in the second semifinal at IWU.

 

“The funny thing about the no-hitter was that Jason called it about a week ago,” said DiFillipo. “I told Jason that if he did throw one, we would get him a steak dinner. Looks like we will be going out for steak tonight. Jason was outstanding for us. We had some clutch hits from Josh and Rogan. Rogan had a big hit yesterday, too.”