Poulsen produces as Schaumburg edges Warren

Normally, Christian Poulsen gets his work done in short bursts.

But on Saturday, he was in for the long haul.

The Schaumburg reliever turned starter for the day got a 3-2 complete-game victory over host Warren in a nonconference baseball matchup by allowing just 1 walk and 1 hit for extra bases.

"I prefer starting," Poulsen said with a big smile. "It lets me kind of warm up and get in the groove more. It lets me play with my pitches a little bit.

"You can throw harder coming out of the bullpen because you don't have to go for as long and you've got to change your sequences more when you start and make sure you're not throwing the same pitches to the same guy. But I still really like (starting)."

Poulsen got into a couple of jams late in the game, but calmly worked through them.

Warren (23-12) scored a run in the sixth inning when Andrew Hill, who got on with a single, eventually scored on an error. Jake Falish, who reached on another Schaumburg (14-13-1) error, advanced all the way to third on the same error that scored Hill. If Falish had scored, that would have tied the game at 3 runs apiece.

But Poulsen retired the next two batters to end the inning.

Warren also threatened in the seventh when lead-off batter Brad Zahn singled and eventually advanced to third. But again, Poulsen retired the next two batters to end the inning, and the game.

"(Poulsen) did a fantastic job. He kept his pitch count low and he got ahead on batters," Schaumburg coach Cal Seely said. "He got out of some tough jams and took care of it. He's not normally a starter, so he came up huge for us today.

"For a relief pitcher, to ask him to go seven innings against a very good team is a tough job. But he's earned every bit of playing time. He's a tough kid. And it's nice to know we can rely on some guys like that in tough situations."

Warren was in a tough situation before the game even began.

Graduation for the seniors was held earlier in the day at Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston. With nearly 1,200 students in the senior class, it took nearly an hour of the ceremony just to read through the names.

Then, on the way back up to Gurnee, the seniors hit a major accident on the Tri-State Tollway that shut down the entire highway.

Some of the Blue Devils arrived at the baseball field with less than 30 minutes to spare.

"We didn't have too much energy today, coming straight from graduation," said Hill, who went 2-for-3 on the day with a run scored. "Most of the seniors, which is a big part of the team, got here pretty late. I'd say that we weren't as mentally prepared as we should have been.

"But I have confidence in the team that come playoff time, we'll be mentally prepared and games won't end with us being dead and losing a game by one run."

Losing one-run games became all too common for the Blue Devils this season. They lost a total of seven of them, including the Schaumburg loss and a 4-3 loss to Loyola on Friday night.

"We just haven't really got that timely hit (in the close games)," Warren coach Clint Smothers said. "Like today, we had our chances. How many guys did we have at second and third? We just didn't come up with that hit. We've been in other situations where we've been ahead and other teams have come up with that hit.

"It's the baseball gods and that's it. But we've competed and that's what you want."

Warren had baserunners reach at least second base eight times, and left six of them stranded.

Schaumburg was more efficient, scoring 3-of-5 runners in scoring position. The Saxons, who were struck out 10 times over the first five innings by Warren starter Ryan Davila, managed to score all three of their runs with two outs.

Chris Broccolino and Andrew Ralston each had 2 hits and an RBI for Schaumburg.