BASEBALL: All Southwestern eyes focused on conference perfection

PIASA - In 10 baseball seasons since the South Central Conference expanded to two divisions, the SCC West never produced an unbeaten champion.

Season No. 11 has the Southwestern Piasa Birds poised to be the first.

"Hopefully, we can finish out a perfect season," said Southwestern coach Brian Hanslow, whose team can do that with a victory over Gillespie on Saturday. "That was our main goal going into the season, being 10-0. That's what we strived for. ... Conference is important to our guys. That's for bragging rights."

The conference championship is the second in three seasons for the Birds, whose last league title previous to 2006 came in 1995.

And what was expected to be a hotly contested race in the SCC West turned into a romp for Southwestern, which leads Marquette Catholic by three games. The Birds beat the Explorers 4-3 in eight innings on April 22, but Southwestern has won every other conference game by at least three runs.

Southwestern achieved another milestone Tuesday, beating Carlinville 12-2 to reach 20 wins for the third time in four seasons.

"We got to 20 wins, that was our second goal as a team and we accomplished that," Hanslow said. "Now, our third goal is to win the regional title."

The Birds have not won a conference and regional title in the same season since 1994. They are the No. 1 seed in one of the two sub-sectionals feeding into the Greenville Class 2A Sectional. Southwestern is assigned to the Hillsboro Regional with Carlinville, Litchfield, Vandalia and No. 3 seed Hillsboro.

"We're the favorite on paper," Hanslow said, "but you've still got to go out and play."

Southwestern bounced back from a 2-5 start and reeled off a 10-game winning streak before stumbling. The Birds lost four of five games last week. And while this week has brought victories over Staunton (14-13) and Carlinville, Hanslow said, "we didn't play regional-type baseball and we've got to get back to that."

The Birds, who last won a regional title in 2005, are led offensively by sophomore third baseman Ryan Cox, who is hitting .388 while leading the SCC West in RBIs (42), doubles (11), triples (3) and home runs (5). He is second in runs scored with 32, one behind teammate Cole Lawson.

"For a sophomore, you couldn't ask any more of him," Hanslow said of Cox.

Lawson, a junior outfielder, is hitting .438 with 16 RBIs and a team-leading 14 stolen bases. Shortstop Matt Watts, one of just three seniors on the roster, is batting .429 with 21 RBIs. Junior catcher Adam Wallace (.362, 26 RBIs) and sophomore designated hitter E.J. Krause (.305, 26 RBIs) are also starters hitting better than .300.

And while Hanslow expected his team to hit well, he said, "our pitching is what has done it for us."

Junior Ray Blackwood has emerged as the ace with a 5-0 record and 1.32 ERA. Blackwood, Lawson (5-1, 2.72 ERA) and Cox (3-1, 2.47 ERA) will carry the brunt of the pitching load in the postseason. But the depth beyond the top three has carried the Birds through the regular season.

"Our pitching's what really has surprised me," Hanslow said. "I didn't know if our pitchers would be this far ahead."

Ethan Davis, Matt Milligan, Krause and Watts have all appeared in at least five games. "Everybody's done the job," Hanslow said.

Also accelerating the development of a team that began the season short on varsity experience was an ability to get in 31 games despite an abnormally wet spring. If games with Greenville on Friday and Gillespie on Saturday are played as scheduled, the Birds will finish just two games shy of the maximum 35 allowed by the IHSA.

"I'm just real happy we've played 31 games," Hanslow said. "I'm real tired of raking the field and I know the boys are. It's been a lot of work to play a lot of games, but it's paid off. ... I think playing all these guys has helped us, especially since we have all these sophomores and juniors playing.

"That experience, from where we started the year till now, we've made great strides. And we have real good team chemistry right now. This is one of the closest teams I've had here at Southwestern."