ELGIN -- St. Edward stumbled across the finish line in its regular-season finale on Monday, falling to visiting Montini 7-6 at Wing Park.
The Green Wave pounded out 10 hits but left 11 runners stranded. The Wave will open Class 2A regional play against Aurora Christian on Thursday.
"We were just one or two hits away from breaking this game open," St. Edward coach Gene Belmonte said. "It's a little frustrating when you leave that many runners on base, but I like the way we've been hitting the ball lately. Now we just have to convert more of those hits into runs come the tournament."
The Wave (7-12, 6-8 Suburban Catholic Conference) batted around in the third inning and scored three runs to take its only lead of the game at 3-2. A Montini error plated two of the runs in the inning, while Jordan Torres drove in the third with an RBI double.
However, St. Edward left the bases loaded in the third and then again in the fourth.
That left the door open for Montini (15-6, 9-4) to regain a 7-3 advantage with three runs in the fourth and two more unearned runs in the fifth.
The Wave rallied for three runs in the sixth inning to pull within 7-6. Kyle Horn ripped a two-run double down the left field line and Jim Fraczek added an RBI single. But the rally was possibly cut short by a caught-stealing on a failed hit-and-run play for the first out of the inning. Torres was then caught between first and second on a blooper to right field and was forced out at second for the second out of the inning.
"Early in the inning we were trying to stay out of the double play by putting the hit-and-run on with our best contact hitter," Belmonte said, "but it's easy to second guess myself because their pitcher was struggling to get the ball over the plate. But I figured it was a 2-1 count and he would try to get a fastball over. Unfortunately, the ball was out of the zone and it didn't work out. It probably cost us a bigger inning."
St. Edward used five pitchers in the game. Fraczek started and was pulled after two innings. Mike Kondrath, who was the second pitcher, gave up three runs in 1 1/3 innings and was tagged with the loss.
"We used this game as a tuneup for the tournament," Belmonte said. "We wanted to get all of our pitchers some work so they would be sharp."
All five of the St. Edward pitchers tried to keep the ball away from Montini hitters, but the Broncos still managed 11 hits with eight of them going to the opposite field.
"We don't have anyone who can really overpower hitters," Belmonte said, "so we try to finesse them and out-smart them. Our approach today was to keep the ball away, but it's a sign of a good-hitting team when they are able to take advantage of whatever you throw them."
The Wave had just one error in the game. Third baseman Kyle Tourtellott had two standout plays on dribbles down the third-base line where he threw out the runner at first. Kondrath had a highlight leaping catch on a line drive to first base in the sixth inning.
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