It was an upset that not many saw coming. Madison/Chester was undefeated against Class B opponents this season and had one of the best pitching staffs in the state with Class B player of the year finalist JD Prorok and Ben Brooks.

Both Prorok and Brooks saw time on the mound in the quarterfinals, but ultimately the offense couldn’t generate enough runs to take down the Padres.

Early in the game Madison/Chester elected to take out starting pitcher Brooks in order to save his arm, thinking it would win.

However, in the two innings thrown by Brooks, the Padres squeaked in a run on an RBI-groundout from Tyce Feistner to take an early 1-0 lead after two innings.

JD Prorok came on and had to throw five innings of baseball to keep the Padres within reach, hoping the offense would find a spark.

In the final half inning for Madison/Chester, it was able to end an excellent outing by Wentland after getting two runners on with one out.

Wentland nearly went the distance for the Padres, allowing just three hits, three walks, and one unearned run in 6.1 innings.

“The kid’s a three-time all-stater. He’s not going to go out there and throw at 85 miles per hour, but he hits his spots,” said MVPCS head coach Zach Harter. “He wants the ball all the time and there’s a reason why, cause he labors most of the innings for us.”

Then came Isaiah Olson, and in his first batter faced nearly won the game on a wacky play that resulted in an out and a run scored for M/C. 

Olson struck out the very next batter to earn the save, and the upset for the Padres.

“It’s been a long season, and a long couple years to get to this point,” Olson said. “It’s fun to be with all these guys and win these types of games.”

Despite not finishing the game on the mound, Wentland knew it was a team win.

“At the end there when we got that last out I was just so excited for my guys,” Wentland said. “Cause I knew it wasn’t just me out there, it was the whole team that made that winning effort.”

The Padres were limited to just two hits in the ballgame, but that’s all they needed to muster enough offense for the narrow victory.

“We’d been struggling with that all year cause we face pitchers that are good all year,” said Wentland. “We were prepared coming in to it. We just knew we had to bunt guys around and do the little stuff right.”

It was subtle, but the conservative approach taken by the Padres proved to help in the long run.

“It’s been our approach for quite awhile now,” Harter said. “We go up there. We take a strike and we see what happens from there. We try to run their pitch count up and tire guys out. At some point it’s probably going to quit working but it’s been working lately.”

The two hits by MVPCS came off the bats of Cain Tobin and Wentland.

For Madison/Chester, Prorok took the loss in a five inning effort, allowing one hit, five walks, and one earned run to go along with 10 strikeouts.

Jack Olson, Braxton Bjorklund, and Quincy Kurtz each tallied hits in the loss as well.

Madison/Chester ends their season with a record of 14-9.

MVPCS will face off against Howard on Saturday at 2:30 for a trip to the State B high school baseball championship game.