Lemont’s season comes to an end with loss to St. Laurence in sectional championship

BURBANK – After falling in the Class 3A state championship last year, the feeling was that Lemont would be a favorite to win it this year given the returning stars it had.

Lemont’s players put up one heck of a year from start to finish, going 30-8-1 and reaching the Class 3A St. Laurence Sectional title game.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as they would go.

Lemont’s offense got hits on Saturday, but couldn’t get runs, something St. Laurence got plenty of as the Vikings’ ended Lemont’s season with an 11-1 victory in six innings.

Still, it doesn’t take away what Lemont managed to achieve this season.

“I’m super proud of our guys and how we battled this year,” coach Brian Storako said. “We had some ups and downs with injuries, but they battled all year. We’re a better team today than we were at the beginning of the year, which is all we can ask.”

The second inning was killer for Lemont. With the bases loaded and one out, pitcher Shea Glotzbach gave up a two-run double before surrendering a groundout RBI right after St. Laurence got a fourth run on a steal of home to put Lemont in a bind.

Lemont managed to put runners in scoring position in each of the first four innings, including players at third in the first two. They were unable to cross home plate, though, until the top of the fifth when Zane Schneider’s sacrifice fly scored Matt Devoy to cut it to 4-1.

However, that same inning ended on their fourth base-running error of the day.

The Vikings extended the lead back to four runs in the bottom of the fifth with Daniel Coyle’s RBI double to score Connor Marino. Coyle scored the next run on Corey Les’ RBI single, and Les after that on Adrian Perez’s single. Aadden Guerrero went in as a courtesy runner and scored the next play on Ben Geary’s single to make it 8-1.

Lemont again sent runners to second and third in the sixth, but couldn’t shave the deficit. In the bottom of the sixth, the Vikings added three runs to end the game an inning early.

This marks the end of the line for a horde of senior contributors. Lemont’s biggest loss will undoubtedly be Jacob Parr, who now heads to Ohio State to play outfield for the Buckeyes. They’ll also say goodbye to Glotzbach, Deboy, Donovan Moleski and Nick Reno. Parr credited Lemont for preparing him for the next level.

“It’s been a great run,” he said. “We were really underrated last year and this year we came in hot and won a lot of games. We didn’t end the way we wanted but it was still a great year.”

Likewise, Storako expressed gratitude for all his seniors and what they’ve meant for this program the past few years.

“This group was record setting,” he said. “These seniors took our program to another level. 61 wins in two years is pretty good. They raised the bar, got the job done on a daily basis and whether it’s in the classroom or on the field they’re going to go on to do great things.”

While there will be a lot of production to replace, it won’t be a total rebuild. Pitcher Cannon Madej and shortstop Brett Tucker will be seniors while Schneider and Grady Garofalo will hope to build off strong seasons. So while there’s work to be done, for sure, there’s reason for hope in Lemont.

“(The future) is looking pretty good” Madej said. “We have a lot of great baseball players coming in. We’ll have to get everyone together, see how it comes together and just get set for the next year.”