Quinn Rooney delivers in clutch again as Benet beats Cary-Grove in IHSA Class 3A state semifinal

JOLIET – Benet Academy strapping sophomore Quinn Rooney isn’t going to finish the baseball season where he started it.

He lasted one day on the JV team.

“We brought him up to pitch, and then he threw lights-out, and we were like, ‘Nah, I think we need to keep him up on varsity,’ ” Redwings co-head coach Scott Lawler said. “The next day, [co-head coach] Jorge [Acosta], myself and Nate [Arenson], our pitching coach, were like, ‘Did you guys see him take BP today?’

“The next thing you know, he’s playing first base.”

Saturday, Rooney and his teammates will play for the Class 3A state championship.

Benet (27-12) will face St. Laurence (36-5) at 1 p.m. at Duly Health and Care Field, after the Redwings used a five-run seventh inning to beat Cary-Grove 11-6 in a state semifinal Friday.

C-G (25-13) will play Troy Triad (34-7) at 10 a.m. Saturday for third place.

Rooney has made his coaches look good all season.

His two-run triple with none out in the seventh snapped a 5-all tie and was his sixth game-winning hit this season. He’s had two walk-off hits, and his three-run, tie-breaking homer lifted Benet to a win over Kaneland in the teams’ regional final.

“I just try to stay loose the whole time,” Rooney said after finishing 2 for 3 with a walk and two runs scored. “It’s just like any other moment, like batting practice. I have the support of my whole team, all of Benet. It’s great.”

Lawler jokingly called the 6-foot-5, 200-pound Rooney “Baby Luke Wildes.” Wildes (6-3, 205), Benet’s senior right fielder, started the Redwings’ seventh-inning rally with a base hit.

Rooney hurt his back last year and missed the spring and summer seasons.

“He’s got a really steady heartbeat, just cool as ice in big moments,” Acosta said. “He’s just a kid who finds himself in the box in big moments, and he doesn’t try to do too much.”

Benet, which saw a 5-2 lead disappear as C-G scored twice in the fifth and again in the sixth, had 12 hits, including four in the deciding seventh.

“That’s an exceptional team,” Trojans coach Kyle Williams said after his team made its first appearance at state since 2009, when it finished fourth in Class 4A. “They are talented, they fought, they communicated, and they brought energy and enthusiasm, and that’s what it takes to hang with these guys.”

Benet, which made its only other state appearance in 1989, started Northwestern commit Jake Rifenburg, who pitched five innings, allowing four runs (all earned) and eight hits.

The left-hander left with a 6-4 lead.

“[We were] just trying to be on time with the fastball early in counts, hit it where it was pitched,” said C-G’s Ricky Barnes, who was 3 for 3 with a walk, a triple and an RBI single that tied the score at 6 in the sixth. “Basically, just trying to hit the ball hard and do a job for your team.”

C-G made Rifenburg (three strikeouts, two walks) throw 101 pitches.

“They were really on my fastball early, and I wasn’t necessarily expecting that,” Rifenburg said. “So I had to focus more on throwing more pitches. I threw the changeup more, the two-seam [fastball], curveball, to keep them off balance. I was grinding through it today.”

Designated hitter and UIC commit Charlie Taczy, who went the distance on the mound in C-G’s supersectional win over St. Patrick on Monday, started the Trojans’ two-run sixth with a single. Jacob Duvall then walked, and Keenan Krysh’s sacrifice bunt moved both runners up before Brock Iverson (2 for 4) delivered an RBI single.

Barnes followed with an opposite-field single to left, scoring Duvall and tying the score at 6.

“Electric,” C-G starting pitcher Kaden Norman (4 IP, 5 R, 3 ER) said of the mood in the Trojans’ dugout after they rallied to pull even.

But Benet got a 4-6-3 double play to end the sixth, with first baseman Rooney scooping a throw for the final out. The Redwings then jumped on Evan Frangiamore to start the seventh.

Frangiamore, who stranded an inherited runner at second base with three straight outs in the sixth, issued a leadoff single to Wildes and then a walk to Josh Gugora before Rooney ripped a 3-1 fastball into right field. The ball rolled to the wall, scoring two runs.

“He gave me a couple of curveballs in the beginning of the at-bat,” Rooney said. “But then he just gave me a good fastball, pretty much down the middle, and I took the chance on it, hit it hard.”

Ethan Mendez (2 for 4) followed Rooney’s blow with an RBI single. Nathan Cerocke (3 for 5, double) added an RBI single in the five-run outburst.

“It was just the same approach we’ve had all postseason, in terms of trying to find pitches that we can do something with,” Acosta said of the Redwings’ seventh-inning at-bats. “Not chasing, not swinging at the pitcher’s pitches.”

C-G finished with 11 hits, including a one-hop double off the fence by Frangiamore (2 for 4) and a first-inning, two-run single by Francis Panko after Benet went up 1-0 in the top of the inning on Gurgora’s fielder’s-choice RBI. Oskar Freund also had two hits.

“I’d say we gave it our all, tried our best,” said Iverson, C-G’s first baseman. “We just didn’t fully execute when we needed to.”