Bulldogs win Class Regional Championship game in win over Lincoln

By Fred Kroner

They came from far and near.

Some were so close, they could walk. Others boarded a plane to make the commute from Naples, Fla.

A few sat on the metal bleachers behind home plate. Some sat on lawn chairs near the backstop or further back on the hillside.

Many stood, but the spectators who were considered regulars were in their usual spots. No need to jinx anything now, one person said.

The smell of popcorn was in the air on an idyllic weekend afternoon which consisted of a light breeze, 78-degree temperatures and a high school baseball game between a 30-win school and a 20-win school.

Saturday afternoon (May 27) was a festive one at the Mahomet-Seymour baseball diamond for what would be – win or lose – the final game ever at the facility for nine M-S seniors players.

The biggest celebrations and the biggest smiles were from the Bulldog baseball team and their rabid supporters, who had plenty to cheer about following their school’s 4-1 Class 3A regional championship game over Lincoln.

The M-S headliner was senior Blake Wolters – the right-handed pitcher who was the reason around 20 major league scouts were in attendance again – but his teammates are literally all in the same ballpark.

They are, after all, a team, a cohesive team, a pick-each-other-up supportive team.

Despite what many would consider the distractions outside the lines with multiple radar guns in the air for every pitch, there was nothing but focus during the game which lasted 1 hour and 55 minutes.

Against a solid opponent they had already beaten twice – but against a pitcher they had not seen yet this spring – M-S captured its third consecutive regional crown.

And, in an irony that happens when tournament locations are determined in advance of results, the Bulldog win over Lincoln sends the squad into a sectional semifinal game on Wednesday (May 31) that will be played – you guessed it – on the Lincoln diamond at 4:30.

The next M-S opponent will be Rochester (20-15-1).

When a scoreless first inning passed and was followed by a scoreless second inning and the Bulldogs were still seeking their first hit as the No. 9 hitter in the batting order came up to lead off the bottom of the third inning, there wasn’t tension in the M-S dugout.

“We were inching closer to breaking through,” catcher Carter Johnson said. “I wasn’t worried. We have a great group of guys.”

The first inning saw Carter Selk draw a four-pitch, two-out walk and then steal second to reach scoring position.

He was left stranded.

The second inning saw Braden Houchin walk on a full-count pitch. He not only stole a base, but also reached  third on the errant throw to second.

The Bulldog players, who were loose and joking among themselves during the pre-game, were following the vibe of veteran head coach Nic DiFilippo, who showed no panic as the third inning arrived and No. 9 hitter Finn Randolph stepped up for his first turn at-bat.

“There’s not an easy out in our lineup,” DiFilippo said.

Randolph teed off on the second offering he saw from the Railsplitters’ Wyatt Mammen and drove a ball that hugged the foul line, but stayed fair in left field for a double.

“I knew it would be a pitcher’s duel,” Randolph said. “My goal was to get on base. I just wanted to help the team.”

The dust on the field had barely settled when the next M-S hitter, Alex McHale, drilled a shot past third on a two-strike pitch that barely avoided foul territory, and Randolph raced home on the single with the run that provided M-S with a lead it would not lose.

It was Wolters’ turn at the plate. With the Lincoln first baseman pulled in, he bunted to the right side of the pitcher and beat the throw for a bunt single.

Returning to the first base bag, he exhibited a rare moment of exhilaration on the field, with a fist pump.

Both he and McHale moved up a base on a wild pitch and, with one out, cleanup hitter Johnson strode to the plate, looking to atone for a strikeout in his previous at-bat.

“I was looking for a fast ball,” Johnson said. “I wanted to get it in the air to score a run on a sacrifice fly.”

He only met the first part of the goal. He lofted the one-ball pitch from Mammen in the air, but didn’t give either the left fielder or the center fielder an opportunity to make the catch.

His shot left the park for his second home run of the season. He ran the bases like he was in a foot race.

“That was one of my best moments ever,” said Johnson, who has a team-high 47 RBI. “I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted that fast.”

His three-run blast proved instrumental after the Bulldogs were held scoreless in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings and Lincoln managed to push across one run in the top of the sixth.

Randolph said the scoring outburst was what the team needed to take control.

“With Blake on the mound, our confidence and energy is through the roof,” the shortstop said. “Those three runs (from Johnson’s homer) were like an exclamation mark.”

Wolters (7-1) has allowed just three earned runs total in his nine starts as a senior. Against Lincoln, he recorded a season-high 16 strikeouts while permitting three hits and one walk.

Johnson didn’t need to see the numbers on the scouts’ radar guns to know how high in the upper 90s Wolters was reaching with his velocity.

“You always know he will do the job, but he was dialed in today,” Johnson said.

Wolters rated his performance as “a good outing,” adding, “my stuff was working.”

The pitcher escaped a jam in the second inning. Lincoln loaded the bases with two outs. The final runner reached when Wolters issued his lone walk of the day – on four pitches – to his pitching counterpart, Mammen, the No. 9 hitter in the Railsplitters’ batting order.

It didn’t come back to haunt him as M-S left fielder Jake Waldinger tracked down a deep fly ball from the next batter to end the inning.

Until the last out of the fourth inning was recorded on a line drive to Randolph, every out had been registered either on a strikeout by Wolters (10) or on a fly ball to Waldinger (two). The extra out in that sequence was due to one strikeout victim reaching base on a dropped third strike.

DiFilippo had nothing but praise for Wolters.

“It was a fantastic performance by someone who hopefully soon will be a major league player,” DiFilippo said. “This is kind of the norm.”

When it came to striking out the Lincoln batters, Wolters was an equal-opportunity pitcher. He struck out every Railsplitter hitter at least once.

He achieved a season high, however, by getting exactly half of his 16 strikeouts on called third strikes, including every player who batted in the third inning (the second, third and fourth hitters in the order) and the first one who stepped in for the fourth inning.

“This was a bit unusual,” Johnson said. “Usually hitters are a little more aggressive when they face Blake.”

Outside of the third inning, M-S managed just one hit in the other five innings that it batted. Johnson laced a first-pitch single into left field with two outs in the fifth inning.

Eight Bulldogs, however, reached base successfully at least once. In addition to the four players with hits, Carter Selk, Tyson Finch and Mateo Casillas each walked once, and Braden Houchin walked and was hit by a pitch.

The win enabled the Bulldogs to extend their school-record, single-season wins total. The overall record is 31-5 entering the sectional semifinals against Rochester, an opponent that M-S defeated at home, 7-6, on April 28.

The winning pitcher in that game in relief with 2 1/3 scoreless innings, Mason Orton (6-0) will likely get the call on Wednesday although DiFilippo added, “we’ll have everyone available in relief.”

Everyone, however, won’t include Wolters who has 106 strikeouts this season and is nine away from tying his own school single-season mark.

He threw 111 pitches against Lincoln and – based on the IHSA protocol – would not be available to work on the mound again until Thursday.

Prior to Saturday’s game, DiFilippo’s pre-game message was simple.

“When we talked, I said, ‘Make it memorable,’” he said. “This (regional title game) is nothing we haven’t been through before.

“This is a threepeat for us.”

Wolters said that no matter how many more games the team plays together, the Saturday contest was indeed “memorable,” adding, “this was the last game ever that we will play on this field.”

It was also a game with a baseball oddity.

In the entire seven innings that the M-S defense was on the field, there was not one throw from an infielder for a putout at first base.

The infield outs occurred on the line drive to shortstop Randolph, a foul out to third baseman Finch and a ground ball to first baseman Houchin that he handled himself.

The other non-strikeout outs were on the two fly balls to Waldinger as well as one to center fielder Selk.

The 2021, 2022 and 2023 M-S baseball teams are the first in school history to earn three regional titles in a row in the sport.