THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2008
Arlington, Elk Grove Slug It Out
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Sports
Arlington Hts. Post 208 and Elk Grove Post 216 staged a baseball game last Sunday, and a football score resulted.
The two American Legion teams re-defined the word, "slugfest." There were 39 runs, 36 hits, 6 errors, 4 home runs, and 13 extra base hits.
When the considerable dust cleared, Arlington, the state's defending Legion baseball champion, was on top by a score of 26-13. It was the semifinal of the Moline tournament in the Quad Cities. Elk Grove went 3-2 in the tourney and finished fourth. Arlington Hts. played for the championship later Sunday, but the results were not available to the Journal at press time for this report this week.
Arlington scored 3 runs in the second inning, 9 in the third, 3 in the fifth, and 11 in the 7th. Elk Grove fought back by putting 6 on the board in each of the fifth and seventh innings, but it was too little, too late.
Arlington draws athletes from the Hersey, Prospect, and Rolling Meadows High School attendance areas. Shane Uhle (Prospect) was the hitting star for Post 208 against Elk Grove, going 3-for-3 at the plate with 2 homers and 6 RBI.
Jason Leblebijian also homered for Arlington and banged out 4 hits. Twelve of the 13 Arlington players had base hits, and they took advantage of six walks.
Winning pitcher was Dan Kelley (Hersey). Scott Hojnacki, John Hoeksema, Chris D'Angelo, and Joey Dombek pitched for Elk Grove, which wound up the weekend with a 14-5 season record.
Tony Logli hit a grand slam home run for Elk Grove, and Kevin Miller had 3 hits. Elk Grove draws players from the Elk Grove, Schaumburg, and Conant High School attendance areas.
In other Elk Grove games at Moline, the Red Sox started the tourney with a 7-6 victory over Rock Island, the 2007 state runner-up. Trailing by 2 in the bottom of the 9th inning, Miller launched a walk-off 3-run homer, while Chris Hoffman pitched 7 strong innings and Derek Wojcik picked up the win in relief.
Elk Grove finished day one with an 8-1 win over East Moline. Chris D'Angelo homered and tripled, and Kyle Pusateri's 2 doubles and 4 RBI led the offense. Kevin Osmanski won his first pitching victory of the season. The next day, the Red Sox were sent to the losers bracket with a 12-7 loss to Bloomington, and then they qualified for the semifinals with a 13-0 win over Canton behind 5 RBI by Osmanski and the pitching of Wojcik and Hoeksema.
Mt. Prospect lost to Arlington Hts. 13-0 late last week, then took the holiday weekend off from competition.