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Geneva overwhelms West Aurora

It was a nightmarish bottom of the fourth inning for the West Aurora baseball team Saturday afternoon in Geneva.

Seventeen Geneva players came to the plate; 14 of them reached base in some manner in consecutive order as the Vikings completely overwhelmed their future conference rival.

Seven different players scored for Geneva in its half of the fourth, and the slaughter rule mercifully ended the nonconference game after five innings.

Geneva won its third straight game to open the season with its 20-4 victory.

West Aurora, which is leaving the DuPage Valley Conference at the conclusion of the school year to return to its roots in the Upstate Eight, fell to 1-3.

Geneva coach Matt Hahn was able to get at-bats for virtually his entire roster.

"You obviously don't want to run the score up on anybody," Hahn said. "But it's nice getting 20 runs."

The programs' fortunes have changed direction since Hahn first began competing against the Blackhawks.

"They beat us like 23-2," Hahn said of his initial experience with West Aurora as an assistant coach a decade-plus ago.

Geneva pounded out 18 hits against three different West Aurora pitchers.

"There's not much to say other than you have to pitch better," West Aurora coach John Reeves said. "The lesson to be learned today - and what we have been stressing (to our pitchers) - is you have to get ahead in the count."

Kyle Walden had a 2-run single to stake West Aurora to an early lead, but Geneva would answer with two huge innings: an 8-run second and the punishing 11-run fourth.

Ben Chally had an opposite-field 3-run home run in the second to give Geneva a commanding 9-2 lead.

"My teammates did a great job of getting on base," said Chally, who also singled in another run in the fourth before drawing a walk to conclude his day. "I was the lucky one to be in that situation (to produce)."

Nick Poretto had a 2-run single for Geneva in the fourth inning.

In all, 17 players came to the plate: Ben Slattery, Garrett Davis, Nate Polishak, Brandon Evert, Alex Lobrillo, Jack Wassel and Max Novak all had run-scoring singles.

Poretto concluded the scoring with the last of the Vikings' 18 hits, 16 of which were singles.

"Everybody did a great job keeping (the inning) going," Poretto said.

Seth Palmby had an RBI double in the Blackhawks' fifth, and Michael Golich had the Blackhawks' final plate-stomper.

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