Sports

Oak Forest Roars into 3A Baseball Title Game

Kyle Funkhouser scatters three hits as Bengals top Nazareth Academy in state semifinal matchup on Friday morning at Silver Cross Field.

Pop, pop, pop.

The familiar sound of pitcher Kyle Funkhouser's fastball popping into catcher John Zubek's glove has come to be known as the roar of the Bengal tigers during Oak Forest's storybook baseball season.

Funkhouser, a junior who can hit 90-mph on the radar gun and is committed to Louisville, pitched Oak Forest to a 3-1 victory over Nazareth Academy in the semifinals of the Class 3A state tournament on Friday morning at Silver Cross Field in Joliet. He faced 23 batters in seven innings, struck out four and scattered three hits.

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The win raised Funkhouser's record to 12-0 and pushed Oak Forest into the 3A title game. The Bengals (27-7-1) will face Kaneland at 11 a.m. Saturday as they bid to win their first IHSA state baseball championship since 1985. Kaneland (25-10) defeated Waterloo 8-2.

Funkhouser yielded a solo homer to Nazareth Academy's Justin Gonzalez in the bottom of the second but otherwise stalled the Roadrunners. And Oak Forest rallied from a 1-0 deficit in the top of the fourth.

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The Bengals scored three runs on two hits and three Nazareth errors. Bobby Sheppard and Cody Murray started the line moving with back-to-back singles. Arthur Johnson later drew a bases-loaded walk, and Kyle Linares drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Jim Blake scored on a wild pitch.

Sheppard and George Jester each finished with two hits for the Bengals. Nazareth's Ryan Marske was tagged with the loss. He allowed three runs, one earned, on five hits in three innings.

Nazareth (34-6) was looking to add another title to its collection. The Roadrunners  won the 2010 Phil Lawler summer state championship.


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