Raiders realize shot at state championship not part of their destiny after semifinal loss

PEORIA, Ill. — The fifth inning provided the Quincy Notre Dame baseball players with hope.

The sixth inning gave them angst.

The seventh inning brought the stark realization a state championship wasn’t part of their destiny.

Trailing defending Class 2A state champion Joliet Catholic by five runs in the fifth inning of Friday’s state semifinal at Dozer Park, the Raiders rallied, ruining the no-hit bid of Hilltoppers left-hander T.J. Schlageter and scoring three times to make a complete comeback possible.

It ended there. Dalton Miller led off the bottom of the sixth by hammering a line drive directly to Joliet Catholic right fielder Trey Swiderski, and only one hitter reached base safely thereafter. Meanwhile, the Hilltoppers scored five times in the top of the seventh to finish off a 10-3 victory.

“All around, we need to be more efficient to beat a team like that,” said Miller, the senior first baseman. “That was a very talented squad, and tonight, they were better than us.”

It takes being at your best to beat a team that is the best.

“They played a pretty darn good game, and we most certainly did not have our ‘A’ game,” QND senior right-hander Jake Schisler said. “I know I did not have my ‘A’ game on the mound. I wasn’t locating. I was struggling. And we just didn’t have our ‘A’ game overall.”

So the Raiders will face DePaul College Prep at 3 p.m. Saturday in the third-place game. QND (35-2) will be looking to break the program’s single-season record for victories, establish the highest single-season winning percentage and end on the best note possible.

Senior right-hander Tyler Dance will get the start.

“We just have to do something special,” Schisler said.

Such a sentiment was shared with the Raiders following Thursday’s team dinner when John Wood Community College men’s basketball coach Brad Hoyt — also the father of the senior class’s fellow 2023 graduate Jake Hoyt — gave them an inspirational speech.

“He said something that stuck with me,” Miller said. “Tomorrow is not going to be defined on whether you win or not. It’s going to be defined by how we rally together, stay as a team, and fight as a team. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose as long as we play our game, stay true to our game and not try to change anything. I think we’re the winners if we do that.”

In a sense, they already are because they’ve already done that.

The death of senior center fielder Tucker Tollerton in an auto accident last Saturday night shook this team to its core, and the fact they played and won a super-sectional less than 48 hours later, made them champions right then and there.

None of them wanted to settle for that being the end of this.

They don’t want to go out with back-to-back losses either.

“One last game with our brothers,” senior third baseman Brady Kindhart said. “We cannot take anything for granted.”

They have to rekindle the energy they generated in the fifth inning.

Shut down by Schlageter the first four innings — he walked Schisler leading off the bottom of the first and retired the next 13 batters in a row — the Raiders ruined the no-hit bid when Nolan Robb singled to center field. Evan Kenning was hit by a pitch in the next at-bat, and Colin Kurk followed with a two-run double to left-center field.

“Before the inning, I went up to Robb and told him to get the first hit,” Kurk said. “Once we got that, I knew we’d get going. When we get runners on base, that’s when we’re our strongest. That was important. It got us rolling and gave us a chance to get back in the game.”

Robb, who came on in relief of Schisler in the fifth, allowed back-to-back singles to open the sixth, but the Hilltoppers failed to score. That seemed to enliven the Raiders’ dugout yet again, but a three up, three down bottom of the frame curtailed any momentum.

“The wheels kind of fell off toward the end, but I like the fight that we had,” Kindhart said.

Schisler suffered the loss, allowing four earned runs and six hits over 4 ⅔ innings. He struck out four and walked four. Schlageter struck out eight, walked two and allowed three hits and three runs. Hilltoppers leadoff hitter Thomas Kemp went 4 for 4, while Brett Hulbert went 3 for 5 with two runs scored.

The Hilltoppers (25-8-1) will face Columbia in the state title game at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, right after the Raiders try to end their season in triumph.

“From day one, our motto has been ‘win the last game,’” Kurk said. “We still have a chance to do that. We have to come out (Saturday) and play with a lot of intensity. Even though it’s a third-place game, it’s still going to be high intensity. We have one more chance to go out there with our brothers and do something great.”