H-BR pulls off upset of Bobcats

SOMONAUK -- Back on April 7, Hinckley-Big Rock's baseball team did something it hadn't done during the careers of its seniors.

The Royals finally beat Little Ten Conference rival Somonauk.

That experience helped the Royals stun the Bobcats in the Class 1A Somonauk Regional semifinals 4-3 Thursday.

Hinckley improved to 11-11, while Somonauk saw its season end at 23-4, tied for the best winning percentage in school history.

"I left them a note on the bus that said, 'You know what, we beat them April 7, we're going to beat them again today and we'll practice BP 8 a.m. Saturday and 8:45 bus (prior to the regional title game),'" Hinckley-Big Rock coach Todd Prellberg said. "They all put that note in their back pocket, and that's what happened."

With the game tied at 3-3 in the seventh inning, senior pitcher Nolan Craig cracked a one-out single for the Royals. His brother, Colton Craig, then sacrificed him to second. After a Kyle Runyan walk, freshman Jack Peters delivered the biggest hit of his young career, an RBI single off Somonauk ace Scott Powers (8-2) to give HBR a 4-3 lead.

"Jack Peters, a freshman, coming off an eye injury Saturday night, found a way to get it done," Prellberg said. "He had a big double off of Powers on April 7, and he got an even bigger hit tonight."

Craig (6-2) needed only four pitches to finish off the complete-game win, inducing a pair of fly outs and a ground out.

"I had confidence from the very beginning that we would play well against these guys," Craig said. "This is very sweet. The papers may have said we were the underdogs, but we had confidence. We beat them before and we knew we could beat them again."

In the bottom of the first, however, that victory seemed far away. Shayne Peterson led off with a single for Somonauk, Brock Kartheiser reached on an error, Josh Rivera was hit by a pitch, Steve Weismiller drove in a run with a fielder's choice and Tyler Buell walked in a run before H-BR recorded an out.

But Sal Peritore hit a rocket to third that Derek Lee snared and tagged third for a key double play. Craig then threw out Powers on a hit back to the pitcher to escape what could have been a disastrous inning allowing only two runs.

"It should have been a lot more," Somonauk coach Bob Honkala said. "You look back and you second-guess some of the things you did. At that point, it looked like we would have a chance to blow the game wide open and we didn't."

The Royals took a 3-2 lead with a run in the second and two more in the third. Somonauk tied things up at 3-3 in the sixth when Rivera scored on Buell's fielder's choice.

Hinckley-Big Rock will face the winner of today's Indian Creek/Immaculate Conception game Saturday at 10 a.m. at Somonauk in an effort to win its first regional title.

Baseball: Class 1A Somonauk Regional