Focused Neuqua Valley dumps South Elgin

Pitcher Will Drake and the Neuqua Valley baseball team seemed to recognize the importance of Tuesday's series opener better than host South Elgin.

At the midway point of the Upstate Eight Valley season, both teams entered the 3-game series trailing leader Waubonsie Valley (14-3, 9-1) by a game in the loss column, yet only Neuqua Valley performed like a challenger for the division in posting a 7-2 victory.

Drake, a right-handed junior, limited the Storm to 2 runs (1 earned) on 5 hits. He struck out 3 without issuing a walk to notch his first compete game of the season for Neuqua Valley (14-4, 9-2).

"We knew it was a big one for us," said Drake, who improved to 2-1. "It's the start of some of the tough teams we have to play. We came to play."

Meanwhile, South Elgin (11-3, 8-3) was charged with 6 errors, several of which undermined starting pitcher Max Keough (3-1). The total would be higher if box scores included mental errors.

"We're lucky it was just 7-2," South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. "We gave them so many extra outs and different things that we didn't deserve to win the game.

"I'm disappointed. This is the kind of game that I was looking forward to for a measuring stick and we didn't measure up too well. You need to play your A game. We didn't play our A game, our B game or our C game."

The Wildcats jumped to a 1-0 lead in their first at-bat. Leadoff man Zach Herdman walked and later scored on junior Kevin Ringlein's single.

The Storm tied it in the second inning when Danny Asa followed a Mitch Butvilas two-out double by beating out an infield chop, which allowed courtesy runner Justin Howard to score.

However, the Wildcats regained the lead with a fourth-inning sacrifice fly from Nolan Hicks. They extended it to a 3-1 lead in the fifth inning, when Alex DiFranco doubled and scored on a Matt Gould single.

South Elgin responded with a fifth-inning unearned run via a sacrifice fly from sophomore Kevin Barry to draw withing 3-2. However, the Storm committed 3 errors in the top of the sixth, which opened the door for 4 more Neuqua Valley runs on 3 hits and a walk.

The first 2 runs of that rally were charged to Keough, who allowed 5 overall (3 earned) on 8 hits and 2 walks. The senior right-hander struck out 5 in 5-plus innings.

"We attacked the baseball pretty good today against what I thought was a pretty good pitcher," Neuqua Valley coach Robin Renner said.

Storm reliever Kyle Alvarado was touched for 2 unearned runs on 2 hits and a walk.

"We've been winning a lot of games by 1 or 2 runs. I thought it was a big step for us to put that (4) spot up there," said Ringlein, who delivered his second RBI single of the game in the sixth.

Asa and Kyle Hays each had 2 hits for South Elgin, which travels to Naperville for Game 2 of the series on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.