When Alton baseball won a Class AA regional championship in 2001, it ended a 17-year run without a postseason title.
Since then, the Redbirds have claimed four regionals in the seven seasons. They have a good shot at No. 5 Friday at Collinsville when they take on the host Kahoks in the Collinsville Class 4A Regional championship game.
Alton got there by beating its favorite school to beat, the Edwardsville Tigers 6-3 in Wednesday’s semifinals. The game took 2 hours, 50 minutes to complete, thanks largely to Edwardsville pitchers throwing to first base more than 30 times in the game.
Edwardsville finishes 25-11, which marks the most losses in a season for the Tigers since going 24-12 in 1986. But the Tigers appear poised to bounce back with seven of their nine starters, plus their starting pitcher, returning for the 2009 season.
Alton (21-9) is a team led by seniors Vinny Steele, Jason McAtee, Brent Phelps and Trevor Matifes hitting in the Nos. 2-5 slots in the order behind junior leadoff hitter Ryan Mathews, a catalyst despite an average below .300.
Randall Pichee got the win against Edwardsville, which hit enough line drives to win, but was unable to get the clutch hit when needed against the Redbirds senior right-hander.
And while Wednesday’s win will be diminished in memory if the Redbirds can’t follow up with a win over the Kahoks, they could savor the feat for what was left of the night.
“They’re the rival, the natural rival, the conference rival,” Alton coach Scott Harper said of the Tigers. “It’s their tradition, their program that you try to build yourself toward. It’s a good win for us.
“We’re trying to gain the respect of the league after finishing in the lower half. We came out and we played the game. We showed we can play and put it together and get a nice win.”
Now, the Redbirds draw a Collinsville team seeded No. 1 in the regional. But the Kahoks have already dealt their ace, junior Erik Shannahan, against Granite. And with the best pitcher in the regional not available for the Kahoks, I like Alton’s chances of getting to Bloomington for next week’s sectional.

– GREG SHASHACK

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