Glenbard South completes sweep of Fenton
A 14-4 win Thursday over visiting Fenton gave the Glenbard South baseball team its first Metro Suburban Conference series sweep of 2013 and continued the Raiders’ strong season start.
“We know the tough part of the season is ahead of us. We have Riverside-Brookfield, Illiana Christian and Ridgewood all in the second half of the season,” said Raiders coach Mike Riley said. “And this is a conference where winning two out of three in a series is not good enough to win conference. You need to win all three. We need to get better in the first half, so we can be ready for those series.”
The Raiders belted out 10 hits and put the game away in six innings with 6-run showings in the first and third innings where they batted around in both innings.
“We’ve been hitting the ball well the past few games and stolen quite a few bases and benefited from walks,” Riley said.
Glenbard South (5-1, 3-0) racked up just 3 hits in the first inning, but two were 2-run singles each from Tony Tenuta and Alex McGimpsey. Justin Joseph had an RBI base hit and winning pitcher Nick Yangas brought home a run on a sacrifice fly.
Again, the Raiders got just three hits in the big third inning, but made them count. Ethan Gasbarro, Will Cornwell and Joseph all connected on RBI singles and Carl Sanders plated a run on a sacrifice fly.
Later in the sixth, Sanders led off with a double to the left-field fence, the Raiders’ lone extra-base hit of the game and scored on a wild pitch to increase his team’s lead to 10 runs and end the game.
Yangas struck out five in his six innings of work.
Like with most teams, the weather heavily impacted Fenton’s schedule and the series against Glenbard South was the Bison’s first competition of the season. Fenton finished with 7 hits.
Jimmy Kramer finished with two RBI singles. Gary Baker scored twice and smashed a 1-2 pitch to the center-field fence for a triple in the third. Alex Cowan got Fenton’s other extra-base hit, a double in the fifth and his groundout in the third scored the Bison’s second run.
“We have 15 juniors and three seniors who didn’t start last season. It’s going to be a tough go at the beginning. But it’s a long way to go and time is on our side. We just need to buckle down and see who steps up,” said Fenton coach Dave Schwabe.