St. Rita wins its first baseball state title in a wild, improbable, walk-off extra-inning marathon

St. Rita catcher Colin Quinn caught the final out that secured the Mustangs’ first state baseball championship Saturday. That’s what nearly everyone at Slammers Stadium in Joliet thought happened, at least.

‘‘I caught it and then took a step,’’ Quinn said. ‘‘I, like, blacked out.’’

St. Rita charged the field and celebrated as fireworks went off. But Triad’s runners didn’t leave their bases.

Something was wrong.

The umpires ruled Quinn didn’t catch the ball. It fell out of his glove after two steps.

‘‘I caught it,’’ Quinn said. ‘‘Then I took my eye off it, and it came down. It is what it is. My heart started to jump a little.’’

The game was restarted with the Mustangs leading by three in the seventh inning. Triad’s Carter Gaskill returned to the batter’s box and slugged a three-run home run to tie the score at 11.

‘‘Oh, man,’’ Quinn said. ‘‘This isn’t happening.’’

But St. Rita, a team that lacks star power but doesn’t know how to stay down, found a way to pick Quinn up.

Quinn led off the eighth with a walk. Four batters later, Vinny Stubitsch hit a long foul fly to right field with JJ Quinlan on third. Triad unwisely caught it and was unable to throw out Quinlan at the plate, and the Mustangs won the Class 3A championship game 12-11.

St. Rita stormed the field with renewed vigor after a five-hour marathon. This time, it counted.

The game featured a one-hour rain delay after the third.

‘‘The only thing I can compare [this game] to is the Cubs’ Game 7 of the World Series [in 2016],’’ Quinn said.

Will Rewers started for St. Rita (30-12). He pitched three innings before the rain delay and another 2⅓ after it, allowing seven runs and 10 hits.

‘‘I was pretty confident I was going back in,’’ Rewers said. ‘‘I was stretching for that hour. It may have been the longest hour of my life, waiting to get back out there. The first three innings, it was hot and the heat was wearing on me. I was working a little faster than I should have. The hour break really rejuvenated me and helped me get back in the groove.’’

Stubitsch hit a two-run homer in the first as the Mustangs jumped out to a 5-2 lead.

St. Rita lost in the championship game in 2014 and 2019. This is the first state championship for the Mustangs in more than 100 seasons of baseball.

‘‘I’m just so happy for our community,’’ St. Rita coach John Nee said. ‘‘So happy for all the guys that wore the uniform and all the hard work those guys put in to get us to this point. And for this group to get us over the hump. It has been a big hump. This was the group to do it. We were built for this.

‘‘They believed in something bigger than themselves. Not one guy on this team made it about them — ever. It was always about us. It was about sacrificing for the better of our team. When you get 30-plus guys pulling the rope in the same direction, you can do special things. And this is a special thing.’’