Baseball: Bolingbrook hits four home runs to top Naperville North

Updated: May 24, 2012 10:23PM

Playing the underdog role to perfection, Bolingbrook stunned Naperville North 8-1 Thursday in the Bolingbrook Regional semifinal.

Despite being the No. 11 seed to the Huskies’ No. 6 and serving as the “visiting” team, the Raiders (18-16) appeared comfortable on their home field. They grabbed the lead early and never looked back.

“I thought their pitcher was excellent, I thought their defense was excellent, I thought their offense was excellent,” Huskies coach Carl Hunckler said. “We knew coming in—believe me, as coaches we understood—that this was going to be a huge challenge for us. They were on a roll. They were playing well and we’ve been very impressed with how they’ve been playing, so that’s how baseball is.”

Naperville North finishes the year 21-14.

The victory was Bolingbrook’s first in the postseason in program history, according to coach Chris Malinoski, and came on the strength of four Raiders home runs and 14 hits.

Brad Elmore (3-for-4, two home runs) got the Raiders on the board in the third when he blasted a towering home run to left off Huskies starter Brock Borgeson. Chandler Piekarski followed with a dinger of his own to right-center for a 2-0 lead one batter later.

In the fourth, Mario Samuel clobbered a two-run homer that made it a 4-0 game and Tevin Brown scored later in the frame on an errant throw to third that sailed into left field for a 5-0 Bolingbrook advantage.

Elmore homered again in the fifth, knocking Borgeson (4-4) out of the game in the process. Piekarski then slashed a wind-blown triple to left off Huskies reliever Mariano Long and scored on a Scott Foltz RBI single. Samuel scored the final Raiders run in the seventh, coming home on Richard Sandeen’s double.

The Huskies scored their lone run on Pat Mollo’s RBI single in the fourth that plated Mike Laurenzo. They had the leadoff batter on in every inning but the sixth but could not get the runners in. Naperville North leadoff man Marques Winick doubled twice to lead off innings in the first and fifth, and walked to begin both the third and the seventh.

A lack of timely hits did the Huskies in.

“Scoring one run, we’re not going to win any games,” said Hunckler, who credited Bolingbrook’s defense with making “five or six good plays. Offensively, even though we had some hits, we didn’t have enough back-to-back hits.”

Winick, a senior, said his key was honing in on Raiders starter Steve Waldrop’s fastball.

“My key was just to wait back until I get ahead in the count and I knew that if I did that, he’d throw a fastball right there and I’d just put a good swing on it,” Winick said.

Borgeson surrendered four homers in four-plus innings.

Waldrop (7-2) lasted six innings for Bolingbrook, allowing just one earned run.

“I think if you reflect back on the season, our pitching has always been there as one of our cornerstones,” Malinoski said.

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