Penn baseball season ends in IHSAA 4A semi-state championship game

GARY — If anyone knows how close to glory a trip to the IHSAA final four is, it’s Penn baseball head coach Greg Dikos. The six-time state champion finished his 39th season leading the Kingsmen Saturday, June 13, at U.S.

Steel Yard as his team fell short, 6-2, of advancing to the Class 4A state finals for the eighth time in program history.Even though he wasn’t expecting this Penn group to make it to semi-state for the first time since 2023, let alone win its semifinal and advance to the championship game, that didn’t take away the sting Dikos felt watching Lake Central advance to Victory Field while his group wiped away tears as 13 seniors played their final high school game.More: No.

1 Andrean ends remarkable run by NorthWood baseball team“The final four is a hell of an accomplishment. It's certainly not what we wanted, but it's so damn close,” Dikos said. “Kids don't realize how close these things are.

The goals that you set throughout the season, they’re dynamic — they’re constantly changing. We were working for a state championship, and this is what they were geared up for. You keep on reaching a little bit, higher, higher, and higher, that’s what life's all about.”

There may have been no play more emblematic of the 2026 Kingsmen’s constant ability to surprise than when senior Dalton Zultanski laid down a bunt with two strikes in the bottom of the fourth inning to load the bases. Fellow senior Brody Cashen hit a sacrifice fly in the next at-bat, shortening Lake Central’s lead to 3-2.That may have ended up being the last time Penn scored this season, but Dikos said Zultanski’s bunt took “courage” and “guts.”

Cashen, who drove in a team-high five runs across Saturday’s two games, said moments like that were examples of what the 2026 Kingsmen were about.“The expectations this year weren’t high for us, so we just wanted to show everybody how good we really were,” Cashen said. “I love [my teammates], I would do anything for them, and I would do anything to have this