All Carter Block wanted to do this spring was wear a Johnsburg baseball uniform and enjoy his friends. As quarterback of the football team the past two seasons, he helped lead the Skyhawks to 13 wins and back-to-back state playoff berths.

He hadn’t played baseball since middle school.

“He’s a great kid that is friends with everybody and just wants to be part of the team,” Johnsburg coach Eric Toussaint said. “He came up to me in basketball and said, ‘I’m thinking about going out for baseball.’ I said, ‘All right, well, probably, at best, you’ll be a pinch runner or courtesy runner.’ He said, ‘It’s fine, Coach. I just want to be with my friends. I love what you guys do. I want to be part of that.’ ”

On Monday against visiting Plano, Block started in right field, which he’s done more of than pinch running this season. He capped a four-run first inning with an RBI single and finished 2 for 2, helping Johnburg win the Kishwaukee River Conference championship for the second year in a row with a 9-2 victory.

”I definitely worked at [baseball], like going to open gyms before the season," Block said after getting hit by a pitch and scoring. “I know I’m athletic. I just kept working hard, listening to Coach [Ryan] Linkletter and Coach Toussaint, and working on my craft, and I eventually got myself a spot in the lineup. I was happy about that.”

How happy were the Skyhawks after clinching the KRC title? They mobbed winning pitcher Peyton Mesce after he got his eighth strikeout on his 103rd pitch to end the game. Teammate Shane Conlon sped out of the dugout to douse Mesce with ice water from the Gatorade jug, and the coaching staff surprised the players with Skyhawk-blue T-shirts noting their back-to-back KRC championships.

Johnsburg (19-9, 11-2) wraps up conference action with a trip to Plano on Wednesday. For Block, who saw mop-up minutes during the basketball season after not playing the sport his sophomore and junior years, the title gave him what eluded him in his two other sports this school year.

“Obviously, I’ve always wanted to win one in football,” said Block, the prolific passer. “But this means as much, if not more. Winning a conference championship is awesome, and hopefully we can keep it going with regionals and getting to sectionals, supersectionals and more.”

Plano (12-18-1, 3-10) had no plans of handing Johnsburg the title. The Reapers loaded the bases with one out in the first inning, but managed only a sacrifice fly from Justin Bishop.

The visitors touched Mesce for three hits in the second but didn’t score.

“We’re extremely young this year,” said Reapers coach Tyler Mulligan, who’s only 28, after playing three freshmen and three sophomores. “We’re competing at a high level, but our hitting’s not as timely right now. We got to figure out in that moment where it’s, ‘Now that the runners are on, how do we get them in every single time?’ ”

Plano got another run in the fifth on an RBI single by sophomore Julian Gates, after Braylon Schmidt greeted Mesce with a leadoff triple to deep right-center. But Mesce helped limit the damage by triggering a 1-6-3 double play.

“I thought it was a struggle at the start, and then it just kept going up [getting better] until the end of the game,” Mesce said of his performance.

Plano had 10 hits, including three from sophomore catcher Sean Garton and two apiece from Schmidt, who also doubled, and Gates.

Johnburg’s 11-hit attack featured two hits apiece from Block, Ashton Stern (RBI double) and Jack Thompson (RBI double, run-scoring single). Jacob Smith singled home two runs in the first, and freshman Lukas Thompson smoked a two-run double in the third.

The left-handed Gates started on the mound for Plano and was followed by sophomore lefty Nathan Tunt and freshman southpaw Nathan Corral.

“Lots of youth on the team and a lot of experience that has been given to them throughout the season to make sure they’re ready for next year,” Mulligan said.

Reapers leadoff man Eric Nunez (1 for 4) reached on an error to start the seventh, but Mesce retired the next three batters. He struck out Quentin Santoria (1 for 3) swinging to end it. With Mesce’s pitch count over 100, Santoria was going to be his last batter.

“We debated back and forth on that, but it was his game,” Toussaint said. “He wanted it. We had two kids in the dugout saying that they wanted to go in. But how do you pull a kid that has been there for us all year, wants to finish it and wants to have the celebration?”