It was just a case of Angel being Angel on Monday night for St. Laurence.
“He’s usually like that,” Vikings catcher Matt McCormick said of senior right-hander Angel Sandoval. “Quick innings, not many pitches.”
Not many, indeed. Sandoval threw a 60-pitch complete game as St. Laurence beat Neuqua Valley 5-1 in the Class 4A Crestwood Supersectional at Standard Bank Stadium.
That sends the Vikings (35-5) to the state tournament for the first time since coach Pete Lotus was a senior on the 1993 team. St. Laurence plays Edwardsville at 5 p.m. Friday in the semifinals at Silver Cross Field in Joliet.
McCormick, a West Virginia recruit, was 2-for-3 and had the game’s biggest hit, a two-run triple to the gap in left-center that broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the sixth.
The Vikings added two more runs in the inning on an error and Gage Olszak’s RBI single, and McCormick knew that was more than enough.
“We got up by four, I said, ‘There’s no way they’re scoring (that many) more runs,'” McCormick said.
Not with the way Sandoval (11-0) was mowing down the Wildcats (35-2-1), who managed just four hits.
Three of those came in the first two innings, including a pair of leadoff doubles. But Neuqua managed just one run on Eric Nelson’s RBI single in the second. The Wildcats had a runner at third with one out in the first, but Sandoval wriggled out of trouble with a pair of comebackers.
“I was able to make a few adjustments, maybe catch them off balance,” said Sandoval, who also earned the win in relief in Saturday’s sectional final. “Coming back from Saturday, I felt really good, no soreness at all.”
It wasn’t a difficult coaching choice, either.
“The decision was pretty easy to go with him and he wanted the ball,” Lotus said of Sandoval. “He was amazing. … I’ve said it a number of times, the toughness he brings to us is just off the charts.”
St. Laurence took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on a two-out RBI single by Illinois recruit Jimmy Burnette. Neuqua tied it in the second and it stayed that way till McCormick’s big hit.
“What a missile, especially on a day like today (with no wind),” Lotus said. “That was crushed.”
Twitter @mikeclarkpreps
