The Gordon Tech Rams varsity baseball team defeated the Walther Luthern Broncos 8-6 to win the IHSA Sectional Championship at Benedictine University in Lisle Saturday afternoon. The Rams battled back after a rocky first inning for GT senior pitcher Dakota Pisarek. He gave up three runs on two hits in the first but settled down to take the game into the seventh.
“We had the jitters,” Gordon Tech manager Chris Haas told the Bulldog. “The kids were nervous.”
“I didn’t say anything [to Dakota] after he came in” the dugout after the first half inning continued Haas. “I knew he would settle down. The kids have battled back all year.”
Battle back they did. Behind 4-0 in the bottom of the third, the Rams chipped away with three runs on four hits to draw close.
Pisarek blanked them in the 4th and again in the fifth with a beautiful move to pick off the runner at second base to end the inning.
With the pressure on and time running out in the biggest game of the Rams’ lives to that point, senior shortstop Julian Russell lead off the bottom of the fifth inning with a double down the left field line. Junior Alan Osinski brought Russell home with a sacrifice fly to tie the game. The Rams kept coming, adding four more runs after two outs to push the Rams’ lead to 8 to 5.
Walther Lutheran added a run in the top of the sixth.
With no outs in the seventh and two men on, senior pitcher Kyle Boedeker came in to save the game for Pisarek but not before making it exciting. Boedekcer got the first out on a ground ball and the second out on a tap back to the mound. With the bases loaded after a walk and the tying run on second base, shortstop Russell fielded a shot up the middle and throw out the runner to end the game.
This is GT’s first ever baseball sectional championship in its 52 years and the Gordon’s first IHSA sectional championship of any kind since 2000. The GT Rams basketball team made it to the IHSA sectional championship game this past winter but lost at the buzzer to Rockford Lutheran.
Gordon will face the Herscher High School Tigers on Monday–Memorial Day–at 1:30 p.m., at Benedictine University in Lisle. Herscher is approximately 13 miles southwest of Kankakee, Illinois.
See more photos from the historic victory on the Welles Park Bulldog facebook page.
