Prospect stays on track
Prospect's baseball team picked up where it left off.
The Knights, who returned Monday after a successful trip to Florida last week, kept the train running, cruising past Huntley 9-2 Monday in Mt. Prospect.
"We had a good rhythm today," said Prospect coach Ross Giusti. "We are playing good situational baseball right now. We are trying to take an aggressive approach and be smart in the same breath."
Prospect went 4-0 on the Florida trip including victories over Bryant, the top-rated team in Arkansas, and Penn Charter, which is the No. 2-ranked team in Pennsylvania.
"The talk before the game was to keep things going," said Prospect shortstop Jake Cavaiani, who is a three-year starter for the Knights. "We were a bit exhausted when we got back. But the main focus was to keep things rolling and we did."
Prospect (5-1) took advantage of a pair of Huntley errors to score the game's first run.
Mike Piotrowski had an infield single and went to second on an error. He advanced to third after a long fly and came home to score on an errant pickoff attempt.
The Knights added a run in the third. Patrick Donohue walked and stole second, went to third on a fielder's choice and scored on Lucas Karz's RBI single.
Huntley (0-2) climbed back into the game in the top of the fourth. Matt Blair walked and scored on Noah Konie's double to right to make it 2-1.
Prospect put the game away in its half of the fourth.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Cavaiani worked the count full. He then delivered a bloop double, clearing the bases to make it 5-1.
"I hit the ball hard the first time I was up, and I was out," Cavaiani said. "I was trying to do the same thing this time, but he jammed me. That's the crazy thing about baseball. The hard ones are outs and the easy ones are hits."
Karz followed with ones of those hard ones. But this one was a monster homer to left to put the Knights up 7-1.
"It was a high fastball and I just got my pitch," Karz said. "It felt perfect with my bat. There was very little vibration."
Joe Rizzo, who collected 3 hits for Huntley, singled home Brian Wiggins in the fifth.
But Prospect answered in a big way when pinch hitter Tyler Damsky, who had been sidelined earlier with a nagging injury, smashed at solo-run homer to make it 9-2.
"It was a good feeling to get back on the field," Damsky said. "I was trying to hit the ball square and it ended up going out."
Huntley, which had not played in over a week, needed to shake some of that early season dust off. The Red Raiders, who lost 16 seniors to graduation this year, are looking to do some growing as well.
"You can't give a good team like Prospect extra opportunities," said Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski. "We gave up 3 errors and there were at least three other plays that we needed to make.
"We are young and still learning. We like the way our guys are going. We know we are going to make some mistakes early in the season, but we will learn from them and make our adjustments."