South Elgin sweeps away Bartlett
The South Elgin baseball team completed its 3-game series sweep of rival Bartlett on Monday with the same brand of strong pitching the Storm used to win the first 2 games.
Senior Tyler Brown held the Hawks to 7 hits and 3 walks and struck out 7 in an 8-2, complete-game victory in Bartlett.
Brown (2-3) lost his shutout with two-outs in the seventh inning on consecutive run-scoring singles by Jake Barrutia and Robbie Euliano, but the right-hander struck out friend and travel-ball teammate Trevor Svetic to end the game, thereby completing South Elgin's 3-game sweep of the Hawks.
South Elgin (10-7, 8-5) won Saturday's Upstate Eight Valley doubleheader by scores of 3-1 and 12-2.
"Sweeping our rivals, that's always good," said Brown. "This is a big win for us. I still have a few of those guys on my travel team right now."
It was the second time Brown dominated the Hawks within a calendar year. On May 8, 2013, he held Bartlett to 1 run on 6 hits and struck out 10 in a 2-1 victory that helped South Elgin clinch a 2-1 series victory.
"The last two years Tyler has done a great job throwing against Bartlett," South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. "With the long week we have, we needed him to step up and pitch the way he did. We have 5 games in six days, so it's going to help our pitching staff and set the example for the week for what we expect."
The loss dropped Bartlett to 8-10 overall, 7-9 in the UEC Valley. Starting pitcher Tripp Paris (1-3) and two relievers allowed 5 earned runs on 8 hits. Three more South Elgin runs resulted from 5 Bartlett errors, 3 of which were throwing errors.
"Once we have some hiccups we do kind of lose the mental edge," Bartlett coach Chris Pemberton said. "I think that's why the rest of the errors happen the rest of the way through. Again, it's about focusing on the little things and we're having a problem getting those small things done correctly. We're going to have to make some steps forward."
The Storm took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Nick Menken hustled home from second base on junior Antonio Danesi's groundout to the second baseman.
South Elgin scored twice more against Tripp in the third inning after he beaned Dane Toppel and Jared Kramer consecutively with one out. Toppel scored on Ryan Nutof's single to center field, and Kramer scored when he and Nutof executed a double steal of home plate.
The Storm added a fourth run in the fourth inning on senior Justin Bryski's RBI single, and they posted 4 insurance runs in the seventh, keyed by Nutof's run-scoring double and 3 Bartlett errors. The 20 runs scored in their last 2 games are more than the Storm scored in their previous five.
"We're hitting the ball great and we haven't been all year, so that's what we need," Nutof said. "We've got some momentum going into Neuqua, which is what we need because they are a tough team."
South Elgin begins a 3-game UEC Valley series against Neuqua Valley in Naperville today at 4:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, Bartlett hosts Waubonsie Valley in the opener of a 3-game series, also at 4:30 p.m.