St. Charles ace Tod Moore, pitching in relief, walked Shawn Seibert with the bases loaded in the last of the seventh inning Friday night as Edwardsville beat the Saints 4-3 in the Class AA state baseball quarterfinals in Geneva.
Edwardsville’s Tigers, who have been making a habit of playing in Elfstrom Stadium in June–they won the title in 1998 and reached the quarterfinals in 1999 and 2000–take a 31-7 record into Saturday’s semifinal against Mundelein.
St. Charles finished 32-8.
For six innings, the game was a battle between lefties Nathan Culp (13-0) of Edwardsville and Nick Prater (10-4) of St. Charles.
A crowd of 5,090, a record for a quarterfinal session, saw Gabe Bauer put the Saints ahead 1-0 when he led off the second inning by hitting his fourth home run of the season over the fence in left.
Edwardsville took a 2-1 lead in the third on two runs that were unearned because of Prater’s throwing error. With one out, Jeremy Loemker beat out an infield hit and took second when Prater fielded Danny Jackson’s dribbler and threw high to first.
Loemker scored on John Matthews’ two-out bloop single to center, and Jackson came home on Paul Joneff’s solid single to left.
The Saints didn’t knock down any fences in the fourth, but they tied the game 2-2. Bauer walked, and pinch-runner Brad Hemmer took second on a groundout, third on a wild pitch and scored on an infield out.
A single, a walk and a wild pitch put Tigers on second and third with one out in the home fourth, but Prater worked his way out of the jam. The Tigers intentionally walked Eric Jones, putting runners on first and third with two out in the fifth. Culp then struck out Brian Szarmach for the third time of the night.
Edwardsville loaded the bases with nobody out in the fifth but scored only once, taking a 3-2 lead. Steve Mueller got the RBI with a sacrifice fly. Prater picked a runner off first to end the inning.
Bauer tripled to open the sixth and his pinch-runner, Hemmer, scored on a wild pitch to tie the game 3-3.
