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ST. CHARLES – Josh Fleming enjoys setting the tone for his teammates.
The York senior infielder smacked a 1-0 pitch over the left field fence for his ninth home run of the season to lead off the bottom of the first inning, providing York with an early 1-0 lead over St. Charles East Saturday.
The solo blast put the Dukes on top for good, and they put the game out of reach with a four-run fourth in their eventual 8-3 win in the Class 4A St. Charles East Regional final.
“That’s why the coaches have me up there,” said Fleming, who became the first player in school history to win four regional titles. “I’m a guy that is looking to hunt early. Once he threw me that heater, I’m looking for it. I’m ready to take it for a ride.
“It’s nice to set the tone — the guys feed off that.”
First-year Dukes coach River Pitlock has grown accustomed to watching Fleming do his thing.
“He is one of the best ballplayers I’ve seen in high school,” Pitlock said. “He’s been our leadoff guy. It allows the guys behind him to see some pitches and relax. That’s his third leadoff home run of the year.”
Second-seeded York (23-11) padded its lead with a three-run second without the benefit of a base hit, instead using three walks, a hit-by-pitch, an error, balk, and Nick Allen’s RBI sacrifice fly during the uprising.
St. Charles East (15-19) battled back with a two-out, three-run rally of its own in the third.
Following Antonio Perez’s double, Joey Arend reached on a hit by pitch, and Andrew Zolna walked to load the bases for Andrew Evans, who also walked to force in a run and make it 4-1.
James Feigleson then reached on a fielder’s choice, with Zolna coming across with the third run of the inning on an infield throwing error.
“Any time that you can come back from being down and put yourselves in the game, that’s all you can ask for,” Saints coach Derek Sutor said.
York opened the four-run fourth with a walk — its fourth straight inning having the leadoff man reach base — before recording four consecutive hits, including Fleming’s single, Drew Gami’s RBI infield single, Marco Giorno’s run-producing single, and Owen Chael’s two-run single to right.
“In high school baseball, if you can get guys on and they know what to do on the bases, you can cause problems,” Pitlock said. “One through nine, we’ve got hitters.”
“This is playoff baseball,” Sutor said. “You must capitalize on mistakes and you can’t make any. A tip of the cap to them (Dukes) for capitalizing on our couple of errors with men on base.”
Senior left-hander Jack Bodach picked up the win, striking out nine while walking five and allowing three runs on three hits in 4⅓ innings, before junior Danny Raible tossed 2 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief for the Dukes, who captured their fourth consecutive regional title.
“I don’t normally send a pitcher into triple digits (105 pitches),” Pitlock said. “He (Bodach) was fighting me tooth and nail to stay out there. I had every trust in Danny (Raible). He has been fantastic out of the pen.”
The win sends York into Wednesday’s Willowbrook sectional semifinals at 4:30 p.m. against West Suburban Silver rival Glenbard West.
“It (the regional title) means a lot,” said Pitlock. “It’s fun to see us to continue what (former coach) Dave Kalal built the last couple years.”
https://www.dailyherald.com/20250531/prep-baseball/baseball-flemings-blast-sets-tone-in-yorks-regional-title-win-over-st-charles-east/