St. Charles East repeats 3-1 win over Batavia

It took less than 90 minutes for the St. Charles East baseball team to hand Batavia a second straight 3-1 defeat.

In the process, the Saints showcased the importance of baserunning.

Taking advantage of two Batavia infield throwing errors, St. Charles East scored the decisive runs on a Jake Asquini bunt single in the bottom of the fourth inning.

The Saints improved to 9-5 and 5-3 with their Upstate Eight Conference River win in St. Charles on Wednesday.

Batavia is 9-3, 5-2.

Ben Smith, who led off the inning with a single, and Austin Regelbrugge both scored on the suicide-squeeze play.

Batavia waited in vain for the ball to roll foul down the first-base line.

But it never did, and Regelbrugge never hesitated in scoring from second base.

"I was rounding third, and (coach Len Asquini) was shouting, 'Go, go, go," Regelbrugge said. "It was kind of like a bang-bang thing. I didn't even think about it."

It proved to be the defining play of the game as St. Charles East right-hander Mike Boehmer was masterful in his complete-game 4-hit victory.

Boehmer escaped major damage in the Bulldogs' first inning.

Jeremy Schoessling and Micah Coffey had back-to-back singles, and the former later scored on an infield error in which Jacob Piechota, the Bulldogs' starting pitcher, was credited with an RBI.

The bases were loaded one batter later.

"We were in jail," coach Asquini said.

But Boehmer induced an inning-ending double play, one of two on the day for St. Charles East, to terminate the threat.

"I don't strike guys out," said Boehmer, who improved to 3-1 on the spring. "I let the fielders do all the work. They get the outs for me. I appreciate it."

Sixteen of the Bulldogs' 21 outs came via ground balls.

Boehmer, who ended the game with three routine grounders, never struck out a batter after opening the game with a caught-looking.

"We pounded the ball into the ground," Batavia coach Matt Holm said. "(Boehmer) did a very good job of keeping the ball low in the zone."

Piechota could very easily have had a 1-0 shutout win had the pair of punitive throwing errors not occurred.

St. Charles East tied the game at 1-1 in its half of the third when Adam Rojas raced all the way home from first on an overthrow at first base.

The Saints were back in business one inning later when Smith and Reggelbrugge were perched on second and third with no outs after the second throwing miscue.

"If you were at (Tuesday's) game you could just reprint that," Holm said of the two tough losses. "(Boehmer) was very effective. We weren't patient enough to get the ball up."