Mandel, Mundelein warm to the task against Fremd
Several pregame warm-up pitches and 2 full innings of work weren’t enough for Mundelein senior left-hander Jared Mandel to get a feel for his off-speed pitches during Saturday’s Class 4A regional championship game against Fremd at Mundelein.
After falling behind 3-1, the Mundelein offense put together a decisive 5-run second inning in which 11 Mustang batters came to the plate. During the offensive outburst, Mandel was afforded the time to visit the bullpen to refine his off-speed pitches.
The in-game bullpen session did the trick. Behind Mandel, the top-seeded Mustangs (33-4) blanked Fremd for the remaining six innings en route to a 7-3 win and a regional title.
“(Mandel’s) kind of been that way all year,” said Mundelein coach Todd Parola. “He’s always gotten off to a little bit of a slow start. Once he settles in, he gets better as the game goes on. It was no different today.”
After the ninth-seeded Vikings (20-17) plated three runs in the top half of the first, Mandel scattered only 3 hits the rest of the day to put Mundelein in Wednesday’s 4:30 p.m. sectional semifinal at Glenbrook North against No. 14 Palatine (18-19), which won its regional 6-3 over No. 5 Libertyville.
During the side session Mandel was able to not only work on his pitches, but rid himself of some of the added adrenaline of pitching in a championship game.
“I worked on the off speed stuff,” said Mandel. “Just made sure it was fluid and I was ready to go for the next inning. It started to click after that.
“I just needed to settle down a little. I had the emotions and the adrenaline going a little too much.”
Fremd jumped to an early lead after senior shortstop Zack Kolakowski scored on a bloop double from Jack Andersen (1-for-3, RBI). Then Matt Wisniewski reached on an error and they both came around to score on consecutive singles from Sam Beutler (2-for-3, RBI) and Connor Bieda (1-for-3, RBI).
It was the start the Vikings had hoped for.
“Going into the game we executed right off the bat,” said Kolakowski (1-for-3, walk, run scored). “We jumped on ’em. We wanted to put them down real quick — but you know, that’s baseball.”
Fremd starting pitcher Lee Breitzman was lifted from the game after allowing 6 runs. Righty Jason English relieved Breitzman and inherited the bases loaded with two outs in the second inning.
English escaped the jam with a strikeout and allowed only 1 run the rest of the way, but the Vikings bats remained silent.
“(English) did a great job, he’s been solid all year,” said Fremd coach Chris Piggott. “We felt a little defensive at the plate. Their guy did a good job keeping us off balance.
“They’re a good team. They battle. Our pitcher hasn’t thrown that many pitches in two innings all year. They fought off some tough pitches until they got a pitch they could handle, so credit them.”
After falling behind 3-0 in the first, Mundelein got on the board with a solo homer from Chris Maranto (2-for-3, 2 RBI).
“You couldn’t have asked for a worse start,” said Parola. “It was huge we came out and Maranto hit the bomb. I think that re-energized us.”