Scheck pitches in with sweet swing

Jeremy Scheck chose not to pitch this spring, but not to pitch his senior season.

And Thursday, Stevenson’s skilled lefty pitched in.

Limited to designated-hitter duties after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his left elbow 11 months ago, Scheck enjoyed the first multihit game of his varsity career, going 3-for-4 with 2 line-drive doubles and 3 RBI, helping Stevenson rally for a 14-6 win over visiting Lake Forest.

“He was our best hitter today,” Patriots leadoff-man Michael Martin said.

Not a bad compliment for Scheck, who missed his entire junior year, considering Clemson University successfully recruited him as a pitcher.

“It feels good to finally contribute and help the team any way I can,” Scheck said.

Another Stevenson left-hander, Blake Fiedelman, picked up the win, allowing 2 earned runs (6 total) in 5 innings, while striking out seven and walking a pair.

Stevenson (10-2, 6-0 North Suburban Lake) pounded out 17 hits — four by Ricky Kern and three apiece by Martin and Scheck — against three Lake Forest pitchers. The Patriots scored in every inning, and with that fact being visible on the scoreboard beyond the right-field fence, Scouts coach Ray Del Fava quipped that it “looks like a phone number up there, not a score.”

Lake Forest (4-8, 0-4) manufactured a run in the first inning when leadoff-man Chris Godinez walked, stole second and third, and raced home on Matt Lawrence’s groundout.

The Scouts took advantage of 3 errors to score three more runs in the second. They went up 5-3 in the third when Lawrence hit the first of his 2 doubles, stole third and then swiped home on a deliberate throw from catcher to pitcher.

“We came out aggressive, ready to play,” said Del Fava, whose Scouts got 2 hits apiece from Lawrence and Alex Ehrens.

“We just got to find that starting pitcher that can shut another team down.”

Lake Forest’s fifth run finally made Stevenson coach Paul Mazzuca snap. He lit into his players after Fiedelman ended the top of the third with a called third.

“We lost our focus, and it showed with fielding errors and that mental error (with Lawrence on third),” Mazzuca said. “We weren’t sharp. I had to remind them where their focus should be. We gave them three innings of bad baseball, but we came back and played four innings of Patriot baseball.”

The Patriots responded immediately to their coach, pulling even in the bottom of the third on Scheck’s two-out, 2-run single off lefty starter Jake Stern.

“That was a great at-bat,” Mazzuca said.

Stevenson went ahead in the fourth off reliever Collin Christensen, with Adam Walton’s sacrifice fly plating Martin with the go-ahead run and Max Golembo’s RBI single making it 7-5. Scheck kept up his hot hitting in the fifth, doubling again in a 3-run inning.

“I was struggling a lot at the beginning of the year,” Scheck said. “(Coach) took me out of the lineup for a while, but I kept taking my swings in the cages, and kept practicing and working at it.”

Patriots righty Isaac Greenspon showed off his filthy curveball in sixth and seventh, tossing 2 no-hit innings with 2 strikeouts.

The Patriots overcame 4 errors. Martin went 3-for-3 with 2 doubles, 2 walks and 4 runs scored. Kern was 4-for-4 with an RBI double. Golembo finished 2-for-2 with a run-scoring single, 2 walks and 3 runs scored, and Jack Karras had 2 hits and 3 RBI.

“At the beginning, we played terrible,” Martin said. “But we picked it up at the end.”