By Patrick McGavin- Photos by Lauren Gray
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WEST CHICAGO— A season that started as an idea or a theme turned into something beautiful and glorious on a radiant bright day.
The Illinois Wolves 12U team began preparing for this moment in the late winter and early spring with conditioning and training.
The 11-player roster fed off of each other.
“What we did today is how we’ve played the whole season,” shortstop Johnny Ziroli said. “Our team kept hitting all together, making a lot of hard, solid contact, getting on base and we kept driving people in.”
The Illinois Wolves 12U smashed six extra-base hits for the 11-1 six-inning win over the Schaumburg Flyers 12U in the championship game of the West Suburban Baseball League tournament at McCaslin Park on Sunday, July 12.
The Wolves (50-15-1) capped its remarkable first season of play in sharp and commanding fashion.
The victory punctuated a five-game winning streak.
In the three-game series that started Friday, the Wolves produced a scintillating 33-5 run differential.
“We hold the bar really high for our team,” coach Brandin Muniz said. “We started the year slower than what we’d have liked.”
“It was the first year that a lot of these boys played together. We knew the potential. It just took a spark to get the team going. That’s what. happened. We finished very strong.”
The Wolves edged the Flyers 12-11 on May 6.
In the championship rematch, it was a virtual knockout from the start. The Wolves scored at least one run in five different innings.
The team collected 11 hits, of every manner, sharp singles and booming overhead shots into alleys or drives down the line.
The Wolves were both efficient and opportunistic.
“We beat them once, and we wanted to do it again,” Ziroli said. “The way we started gave us the energy to keep scoring runs throughout the game.
The Wolves blasted four doubles, a symbolic dagger first performed by starting pitcher Jackson Donkin.
His first inning drive down the left field line scored the opening run. He pushed the lead to 2-0 by scoring on a sacrifice fly by outfielder Greyson Johnson.
In the second inning, outfielder Cole Wolf smashed a two-run double for the 4-1 advantage.
Those two shots ignited the attack, and set the stage for the rout.
”It was a curveball, and it started high and then it dropped down,” Wolf said. “I saw it really well, I timed it, and I just smoked it.”
Winning is both a feeling, and a state of mind. The Wolves let the Flyers hang around during their first encounter. This time it was more like a knockout, steady and unrelenting in pressure and never letting the Flyers get comfortable or confident.
“We also had good pitching all around,” Wolf said.
Four different pitchers combined for seven strikeouts.
Donkin was the starter, and gave up the only run. He ended the threat with a strikeout, but felt a twinge in his throwing arm.
Johnson did the bulk of the work, going three innings and striking out two and allowing just two hits. The hard-throwing southpaw kept the Flyers consistently off balance.
“The last couple of games, I pitched, but it didn’t go as well as I wanted,” Johnson said. “I tried to fix everything, and everything just got better. Being a left-hander, I have a great pickoff move. Even if I give up a walk or base hit, I still have a chance to get them out.”
The Flyers did threaten to narrow the deficit by putting runners in scoring position in the fourth, fifth and six innings.
Each time, the Wolves stranded them there, showcasing strong fielding or clutch pitching.
Fittingly, in a season that has featured heavy bats, the Wolves closed out the victory with some prodigious batting.
Catcher Caliel Varela went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and a run scored. With one out in the fifth inning, he drilled an opposite field shot down the right-field line.
He was off to the races.
“I wasn’t thinking about trying to get home or anything like that,” he said. “I was just trying to get one more base.”
Varela raced around the bases for an inside the park home run. He finished with a dramatic flair, sliding under the tag for the 6-1 lead.
“I think we started getting close from the early practices, and then we got to know each other,” he said. “We started going from there. I think today, everybody was aggressive up at the plate. We were swinging, and not looking.”
In what turned out to be their final inning of the season, the Wolves went out in grand style with a five-run sixth inning.
Once again, the pieces just came together, with the Wolves yoking together strong baserunning and the big stick.
Riley Robinson delivered the big blast, a two-run double into centerfield.
“I saw the pitch really well,” he said. “The pitch was high, but earlier they called those high pitches a strike, so I just swung. “I kept running, and got to second.”
Robinson finished 2-for-2 with the two runs scored and two knocked in.
More than half of the 11 hits went for extra bases. Ziroli had a triple. Johnson had the last of the four doubles.
Outfielder Mason Munch had both an RBI single and threw a scoreless inning.
Eight of the ten batters collected at least one hit.
Varela closed out with his own perfect double-double. His sharp two-run single into right center accounted for the final runs.
He closed out the game by throwing two strikeouts as the final pitcher for the Wolves.
“We spend a lot of time together, and it feels great to be able to do this as a first-year team,” Robinson said.
The Wolves found their identity and rhythm and never looked back.
It resulted in a season for the ages.
“I think they got used to winning, and now they come into every game expecting to win,” Muniz said
“There was no quit in this team. They know they’re capable of winning. I think that’s the edge every team needs.”
The Illinois Wolves 12U team featured contributions up and down the lineup. Those other standouts were Carter Behling, JImmy Jam Burns and Jude Dues.
