South Elgin duplicates its dominance of Bartlett

It feels like they're showing nothing but reruns these days.

Take the South Elgin baseball team, for instance. The Storm took the first of a three-day, three-game set against Bartlett Tuesday afternoon by a 12-2 score.

The teams met for Game 2 on Wednesday afternoon, this time at South Elgin, and coincidentally, the Storm won that contest 12-2 as well.

South Elgin doubled its pleasure by concocting a 4-run fifth inning and a 5-run sixth en route to improving its record to 9-2 overall and 6-2 in the Upstate Eight Valley.

Wednesday's victory got high ratings from South Elgin coach Jim Kating.

"My pitching has been pretty solid, we got some baserunners on today and were able to take advantage of good, timely hitting and also capitalize on some mistakes they made, where we were fortunate to get some runs," Kating said.

"The Bartlett group hits, and they can score some runs and they've stranded some runs in these two games against us, that they easily could have scored some more runs against us. They are a dangerous group."

Bartlett's hitters were held in check most of the afternoon by South Elgin starting pitcher Ryan Weiss, who scattered 5 hits over 6 innings of work and gave up just a pair of runs, both in the top of the third inning. He also struck out 7.

"He had a good pace going," Kating said of Weiss. "He was working ahead and I think when that happens kids are ready to play behind them. He gives us some confidence when he's on the mound."

But it was South Elgin's late inning hitting heroics that won the day.

The Storm had already scored a pair of runs with 2 out in the fifth when Bartlett coach Chris Pemberton replaced starting pitcher Alex Curtis with Shane Donovan. After Donovan completed his warm-up pitches, pinch hitter Mike Cipriani stepped to the plate with teammates Kevin Barry on second base and Danny Asa on first.

Cipriani proceeded to club a 1-1 pitch into the right-field corner for a sliding triple that scored both Barry and Asa, giving the Storm a 7-2 lead.

"It's tough to come in and do something, but it feels good to come back and help your team," Cipriani said. "I was just waiting for my pitch. I knew I didn't hit it far, but I got it in the corner so I could keep running."

After Mitch Butivilas flew out to right field, the scene switched to Weiss, who gave up a leadoff double to Bartlett's Myles Zilinsky, but then stranded him by getting Tripp Parris to ground out, and then getting called strikeouts on Jordan Flint and Michael Pfaender.

Things continued to unravel for Bartlett in the bottom of the sixth, as Justin Howard, Dane Toppel and Kyle Hays all singled to load the bases. Nick Menken grounded into a fielder's choice that erased Hays but scored Howard. A single by pinch-hitter Jake Amrhein drove in Toppel, and then Barry walked to load the bases again.

Pemberton replaced Donovan with Scott Palmer, who promptly hit pinch-hitter Jonathan Duffy to drive in Menken. Following a Joey Roberson strikeout, Butvilas singled up the middle to drive in Amrhein and Barry to end the game.

Weiss watched the entire scene unfold with interest from his spot on the South Elgin bench, and was relieved he didn't have to take the mound in the top of the seventh.

"Hitting's contagious, so that definitely helps you out on the mound," he said. "We were hitting because we all come together as one."

Barry went 2-for-3 with a single, a double, 3 runs scored and an RBI to pace South Elgin. Leadoff hitter Toppel added 3 singles and 2 runs scored.

Across the diamond, the game left Pemberton deflated, but the silver lining is that his team has a chance Thursday in Game 3 to make amends. But he knows there is a lot of work to do.

"You know, it's small things," he said. "It's just a matter of putting balls in play, executing, making the right calls on defensive things, blocking balls in the dirt. Just overall execution can really change the rhythm of the game, and we have to do a better job of doing those small things well.

"I think we're going to get a little better. We've had a couple of cold, windy days and I think our bats will come around. There's still a game out there for us to win."

Zilinsky paced the Hawks (9-6, 6-2) by going 2-for-3 with a single and a double.