Glenbard North maintains control of DVC

Glenbard North's baseball team enjoyed another day of ignoring the scoreboard.

Not necessarily their own scoreboard - the visiting Panthers beat Wheaton North 6-1 on Thursday - but they didn't have to worry about who else won or lost in the DuPage Valley Conference.

Call it the luxury of being alone in first place. All Glenbard North needs to do is keep focusing on itself.

The Panthers (18-9, 12-5) hold a two-game lead over Wheaton Warrenville South and Naperville North with DVC games remaining against those two teams and Lake Park.

"The conference race will take care of itself, and all we need to do is go out and play good baseball," said Panthers coach Rich Smelko. "We'll just worry about ourselves and take care of our own business, and good things will happen. If we win, we'll be fine."

Behind a pair solo home runs by Eric Orze to lead off the first and second innings, the Panthers (18-9, 12-5) quickly built a 6-0 lead and coasted from there with Sam Ledbetter going the distance on the mound.

Orze, who went 4-for-4, only started the offense for the Panthers in the first inning. Zach Heck doubled home 2 runs and Alex Taylor singled in another in a 5-run frame. Orze's leadoff homer in the second inning made it 6-0, which is where Falcons reliever Sam Lawrence kept the Panthers in his 5-plus innings of work.

"We weren't really comfortable with how we played after the second inning, but we hit the ball hard all day," Orze said. "It's a great spot to be in right now, in the driver's seat. I feel like we play better in that position."

Wheaton North (9-19, 5-12) had numerous chances to climb back into the game. The Falcons managed 10 hits including 2 hits in four innings.

The problem, however, was clutch hitting. The Falcons stranded nine runners and also had a runner cut down on a double play, a pickoff and a play at the plate.

Wheaton North scored its run in the bottom of the fifth when Doug Michalak's sacrifice fly brought home Andrew Hrgich. Ledbetter struck out five and walked one.

"We hit the ball hard, and we hit the ball hard right at people, but that's just the way baseball is," said Wheaton North coach Dan Schoessling. "We'll continue to build on that. It just wasn't our day in terms of having things go our way."

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