Bobby McMillen readily admits that at times his senior season hasn’t gone the way he or his Naperville Central teammates may have expected it to.
His baseball career in its waning days, the future Iowa State linebacker wants to make those last moments count.
With one swing of the bat on Thursday against Plainfield Central starter Brandon Callender, McMillen kept that career alive for at least one more day.
McMillen’s two-run homer to left off Callender gave Ryan Eiermann all the run support he would need as 10th-seeded Naperville Central edged seventh-seeded Plainfield Central, 2-1, in a Class 4A Marmion Regional Semifinal.
“I noticed all day, I was watching almost every at-bat: (Callender) wasn’t really coming with many first-pitch curveballs a lot,” McMillen said. “So I tried to jump on the first fastball I saw and luckily he left it up in the zone and I just did what we’ve been working on all year—just trying to elevate a high pitch like that and I got a good piece of it.”
In his first career postseason start while starting for the first time in nine days, the TCU-bound Eiermann (8-0) struck out nine while scattering three hits and allowing just one run on a sacrifice fly in the sixth.
The sophomore left-hander settled down after getting out of a jam in the first inning.
Plainfield Central got its first two runners on, courtesy of a hit and a walk, only to see Eiermann strand runners at the corners in posting a scoreless inning.
“I just feel like those type of moments are good for me,” said Eiermann, who has a 0.21 ERA and 110 strikeouts in 68 innings this year. “It kind of gets the game more surreal and kind of gets my head around it and (gets) me more energized to just throw strikes and trust the guys behind me.”
Eiermann’s fourth complete game of the year sends Naperville Central (18-17) into a regional final date Saturday with second-seeded Waubonsie Valley (28-5).
Back on April 1, Jason Neville threw a complete game in the Redhawks’ direction as the Warriors posted a 2-0 shutout and will likely oppose Glenn Kozlowski, who threw five scoreless innings on April 1, for a second time.
The Redhawks will be looking for their first regional title since 2012 in hopes of making up for regional final losses to Plainfield North and Neuqua Valley the last two years.
“We talk about playing for championships and we talk about being special on Saturday because that’s usually hand-in-hand,” Naperville Central coach Mike Stock said. “We get the chance to do that. We’re playing for a championship on Saturday. That’s all we want to do.”
Eiermann and the defense they played behind him, along with McMillen’s sixth home run of the year, is largely responsible for the Redhawks being given that opportunity.
Sophomore shortstop Connor Gurnik helped bail his classmate out of potential trouble in the fifth by retiring Justin Willner on a throw to first with a runner on first and one out in the fifth.
An inning later, Gurnik’s stab of a liner off Austin Blazevic’s bat got Eiermann out of the sixth still armed with a 2-1 lead.
“The biggest play was the ground ball with a runner on first base (in the fifth inning),” Stock said. “(Connor Gurnik) came through and made that play on that ground ball. … He came through and got that one. … That was the play of the game defensively. If he doesn’t get him, they have two on with one out in a (scoring) situation. He gets us (out of trouble). … It was a huge play for us. Absolutely huge play for us.”
