No doubt for Eagles

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LISLE -- If there was any doubt left in the Aurora Christian Eagles' minds about this being a new year and a new team, it was erased in the third and fourth innings of their 11-2 IHSA Class 2A regional semifinal victory over Westmont on Wednesday at Benedictine University.

The Eagles (22-10) broke open a 1-1 game with five runs in those two innings en route to a fairly easy victory and a spot in the Lisle Regional final on Saturday morning against either Lisle or Immaculate Conception.

It was about this time last year that the favored Eagles fell to an upstart St. Edward team in the semifinal, where starter David Zielke was roughed up a bit.

On Wednesday, ACS entered as the regional's top seed with Zielke on the hill but this time, the Eagles played nearly flawless baseball.

Zielke (7-1) scattered six hits over seven innings and struck out eight and kept the Sentinels off balance by mixing up his fastball, curve ball and change up.

"I knew that they were going to get some breaks and I had to forget about them and move on to the next guy," Zielke said. "I just had to keep playing."

Westmont (15-14) had one real opportunity in the top of the second after ACS took a 1-0 lead in the first. Mike Gawriluk and Jon Nowak reached on singles to start the inning. Rick Kokoszka moved Gawriluk to third on a force, setting up runners at first and third with one out. After Zielke fanned Dane Vandercar for the second out, Dan McCulloch singled to right to drive in Gawriluk and tie the game.

Kokoszka tried to go first-to-third however and ACS second baseman Zac Copple gunned him down.

Westmont also had base runners wiped out in the third and sixth by Eagles catcher Jake Hanson.

"We knew they were going to hit the ball and score lots of runs and the only way we were going to score lots of runs was to be aggressive," Sentinels coach Mark DeLisle said. "The players knew that going in and that's what our strategy has been all year long. They were a good enough team to take that away from us."

Offensively, everyone got in on the act off Westmont ace Jake Lechelt (7-2) as the Eagles pounded the lefty for 11 hits and nine runs (eight earned) in five-plus innings. ACS pushed across two more runs in reliever Mark Mckenzie's inning of work.

Mitch Holtz, Nate Hill and Zielke drove in two runs each while Matt Morse had three hits and scored three runs.

"That's we've been doing all year," Eagles coach Andy Zorger said. "We waited for our pitch and (didn't) help him out on his pitch. We were able to stay back, pick up the ball and hit it hard. It's kind of contagious."

Baseball Regionals: Aurora Christian 11, Westmont 2