OPRF Baseball Knocks Off St. Rita

Frankie Picchiotti went from texting his way into Oak Park-River Forest’s lineup to being its star.

The senior left fielder suffered a sprained right ankle that’s made it difficult for him to run, so much so that he texted Huskies coach Chris Ledbetter the night before Wednesdays’ Class 4A Mt. Carmel sectional against top-seeded St. Rita to make sure he was still in the lineup.

Ledbetter assured him he would be as long as the leadoff hitter felt he could play.

Picchiotti did more than just play. He belted a three-run homer and wound up scoring three runs to lead an offensive outburst for the fourth-seeded Huskies, who knocked off St. Rita 13-7 in the sectional semifinals at Haggerty Field on Chicago’s South Side.

Picchiotti’s home run in the top of the second inning gave OPRF (29-9) a 6-2 lead. It was quite the blast from the little leadoff hitter, who said he’s 5-foot-6 and 145 pounds.

“Frankie might be exaggerating, but I’ll tell you what, he’s a great kid,” Ledbetter said. “He’s playing on a sprained ankle that he could hardly even run on yesterday.”

Picchiotti got ready for the game by taping his ankle with white tape. Ledbetter re-taped it in black to camouflage the injury.

Picchiotti led off the game with an infield hit up the middle. Next, Zach Weigel and Picchiotti’s brother, Jack, each reached on an infield error to load the bases. Then Mike Brennan delivered a two-run single. Alec Jeffries followed with an RBI double to make it 3-0.

“We knew going into it that we need to attack them right away because we had the first at-bat,” Brennan said.

St. Rita (30-7) scored two runs in the bottom of the first when Stefano Belmonte’s fly ball down the right-field line dropped for a two-out, two-run single.

But OPRF answered with three runs in the second. Eric Cybulski led off with a double and Tim Sutton followed with a walk to set the stage for Frankie Picchiotti.

“I went up there and for some reason I was feeling a lot more comfortable than usual,” he said. “I was seeing the ball really well.”

Frankie Picchiotti launched a 3-1 pitch over the left-field fence for his three-run homer.

“I knew it was gone,” Frankie Picchiotti said about his second homer on the season. “I knew I got it pretty good.”

St. Rita scored two unearned runs in the bottom of the second to close within 6-4.

That was as close as the Mustangs came the rest of the game, though. OPRF broke open the game with a seven-run fifth that made it 13-4. In the big inning, the Huskies took advantage of six walks, three wild pitches and two errors, and received a two-run single from Jack Picchiotti and RBI single from Mike Brennan.

OPRF went through four St. Rita pitchers. The Huskies used three themselves. Weigel (5-2) started and earned the victory after allowing six runs in four-plus innings. William Polley relieved him and P.J. Brennan pitched the final inning and two-thirds.

P.J. Brennan is slated to start Saturday’s 11 a.m. sectional final where the Huskies will meet either Mt. Carmel or Clemente.

“We set this up so he would pitch Saturday,” Ledbetter said. “He’s been our best pitcher all year. I think he threw 23 pitches. It’s like a bullpen (session). I think he’ll be all right Saturday.”

It was a big deal for the Huskies to beat St. Rita, but maybe not quite as big to OPRF’s coaches even though the Mustangs finished second in Class 4A in each of the past two seasons.

“We tried to tell them guys don’t read into all this press,” Ledbetter said. “You could make two books out of all the newspaper articles that have been written about the Catholic League, and rightfully so. They’re good baseball. But we’ve been doing this a long time at Oak Park and we’ve held our own. We’re trying to get these guys to believe that we’re not going to take a back seat to anybody.”

It turned out Ledbetter got what he asked for, although from an unexpected source.

“I said on the bus ride down here, ‘We need a home run today, preferably a three-run homer, from a non-Picchiotti,’” Ledbetter said. “I wasn’t referring to Frankie. I was referring to Jack. He’s the one who usually hits our big playoff home runs. I was basically saying we need a three-run homer from somebody other than Jack. Well, it turned out to be the other Picchiotti.”