Benet comes up short of IHSA Class 3A state title, settles for program-best second-place finish

JOLIET — Luke Wildes has had a wild senior year with Benet.

His senior football season was cut short after he tore his ACL in Week 9 against DePaul Prep. The senior put all of his focus on making sure that he could make it onto the baseball field.

Not even six months later, he was back on the diamond for the Redwings, batting in the middle of the order and occupying right field for them.

“It’s all I wanted to do. It became my life, trying to get back on the field,” Wildes said. “This is more than just a team, it’s a family. I wanted to put them in the best spot possible before the season started.”

It all led to his final high school at-bat Saturday. With just one out remaining in the Class 3A title game against St. Laurence, the senior kept the game alive with a single to right field, to keep the hopes of the Redwings’ first state title alive.

“It was just a next man up mentality,” Wildes said. “I put everything I had out there.”

But it wasn’t enough.

Benet’s championship hopes lasted just one batter longer, as a groundout would end its hopes for good with an 8-5 loss to St. Laurence in the Class 3A title game at Duly Health and Care Field.

Despite the loss, it still marked the best finish at state for Benet (27-13). Its only appearance at state prior to this season was a trip to the quarterfinals back in 1989.

“It was a great high school baseball game,” Benet co-coach Jorge Acosta said. “It was just a fun back-and-forth game. They jumped out first, we battled back, we had some opportunities and we didn’t take advantage of that.

“This has been over a decade in the making. We have had some really good teams over the years that didn’t have a chance to get here for one reason or another. Hopefully, this is a stepping stone for our team to become regulars and get a chance to win a state title.”

Benet entered their first chance on offense already trailing 2-0 in the first inning after the Vikings rallied off four hits against Wichita State commit Gino Zagorac, including RBI singles from Daniel Coyle and Adrian Perez.

It didn’t take long for them to respond. Senior Josh Gugora got the Redwings on the board with an RBI double that scored fellow senior Merrick Sullivan (1 for 4, two runs). On the very next batter, sophomore Quinn Rooney tied the game on a groundout that scored Wildes.

“I knew it was going to be a battle the entire way,” Rooney said. “We just have to know our job and score as many as we can. Unfortunately, it just didn’t end the way we wanted to.”

Rooney, who was a hero in Friday’s state semifinal victory over Cary-Grove, came through again to start the fourth inning. After going down 5-2 after a three-run third from the Vikings, Rooney sent a ball 350 feet over the right-field fence for his second home run of the season to cut the lead to 5-3.

“It was just surreal and I was happy I could do that for my team,” said Rooney, who finished the weekend with three hits and three RBIs. “We just kept battling until the end, and I’m so proud of my team for that. We gave it our all, and that’s all that matters.”

Gugora tied the game in the bottom of the fifth inning. After Sullivan was hit by the first pitch from reliever Daniel Coyle, the senior snuck a ball past a diving third baseman to drive him home and tie the game at 5-5.

“We were always confident in the box,” Acosta said. “We got some good swings on their starter and squaring some balls up. It was just a matter of time before we got something threw or into the gap, and we did.”

The Redwings’ comeback attempt was stymied after the fifth. Coyle gave the Vikings back the lead with a two-out RBI double before going back onto the mound twice more to secure their first state title.

“That reliever did a good job of doing things different for them on the mound,” Acosta said. “It took us a little bit to adjust to it, but hats off to him and St. Laurence. He executed pitches when he needed to.”