Standing 5-foot-8, St. Laurence’s Daniel Coyle may not seem like your typical cleanup hitter but his belief in himself and his play has paid off.
“I love playing with that pressure on my back,” Coyle said after an 11-1 win over Lemont in the Class 3A St. Laurence Sectional final on June 7. “I believe I am the best one out there — it’s just (my) confidence. With the guys backing me up, I can do anything they can do.”
St. Laurence coach Pete Lotus pencils Coyle into the lineup every game because he knows what he will get out of Coyle.
“He just comes to play,” Lotus said, “He does not let those other things like his size, arm strength and how far he hits the ball impact him.”
The junior third baseman collected three hits, including a double, scored twice and drove in another in the six-inning win.
“He’s just a good baseball player,” Lotus said. “It’s the biggest compliment I can give him is that he knows how to play baseball.”
Danny Dovovan put the Vikings on the board first with a two-run double in a four-run second inning.
“Coyle’s hit in the first gave us the confidence we can hit the guy,” Donovan said. “Then we rolled off with the confidence from everyone else getting on base and we just kept going. It was up from there.”
The Vikings batted around and scored four more runs in the fifth to push their lead to 8-1 before scoring the final three runs in the sixth to close the game out.
All nine Vikings starters reached base and all but two drove in a run in their eighth straight victory.
“Everyone contributes,” Coyle said. “It’s a team game and we all pull for each other. Without each other, none of this is possible.”
St. Laurence starter John Strzechowski pitched 4 1/3 innings and allowed four hits and six walks. But he limited the damage to just one run while striking out three. Cory Les (two hits, one strikeout) pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings in relief.
Last season, St. Laurence dropped the sectional semifinal to Lemont 9-0. It was a moment that has stuck with the Vikings throughout the past year.
“It was a tough loss last year,” Lotus said. “They are resilient. We have a lot of the same guys that went through that. They were able to learn from it and execute.”
Donovan did not play in the Lemont game last season, but was up with the team practicing during that playoff run.
“All the experience helps a lot (this year),” Donovan said. “To get back here and just end it and show them that we were better was great. It was just a whole team effort.”
“That hurt last year,” Coyle said. “I really thought we had a great team last year. But this year we have an even better one. We’re tough, we’re gritty, we’re going to do whatever it takes to win.”