Solid pitching leads Northwest past Arlington in Legion ball
Northwest Legion's Alex Kiszlowski never pitched when he played high school baseball at Schaumburg. But that didn't stop the all-area shortstop from coming in to pitch 2 innings of scoreless relief on Thursday to help his team hold off Arlington 4-3 in the winner's bracket of the 1st Division Cook County Legion tournament at Recreational Park in Arlington Heights.
"I just pitched a little growing up," Kiszlowski said. "But not in high school, I pitched three times this year. I was a little surprised to get the call. But coach told me he believes in me."
Northwest Legion coach Kevin Miller felt comfortable going to Kiszlowski after Adam O'Malley pitched 7 strong innings for Northwest Post 690.
"Adam was spent," Miller said. "He was nervous because he hasn't pitched a lot. I went out there and settled him down and I told him that I believed in him."
The win moved Northwest (17-9) along and they will play the Northside Braves at 7 p.m. Arlington Post 208 is also still alive, and will play at 3 p.m. against the Chicago Grizzlies.
Northwest took an early lead when Josh Bergbreiter of Elk Grove, who had 4 hits on the night, tripled. He then scored on a single by Connor Quinn.
Northwest extended its lead to 4-0 in the third.
Kiszlowski and Bergbreiter singled to open the inning. After a walk with one out, Brendan Beck walked. Jack Wagner, who had 2 hits on the night, then delivered a bloop single to left, driving in a pair of runs. Sean Fege then followed with a RBI single.
O'Malley, who had stymied Arlington (15-14) through the first 6 innings, allowing just 1 hit, while striking out 10, finally got touched up in the seventh.
Alex Niecikowski led off with a triple and score on a sacrifice fly by Brett Gibson, who threw all 9 innings for Arlington. Back-to-back doubles by Nick Donzelli and John Santee gave Arlington another run. Then a pair of errors by the Northwest pushed another run across before O'Malley was able to get out of the jam.
"I felt real good early,"O'Malley said. "But I had thrown a lot of pitches, and started to leave some up and they took advantage of it."
Kiszlowski entered in the eighth and gave up a leadoff walk. After he threw 2 balls to the next batter, Miller came out to settle down his inexperienced pitcher. That's all it took as Kiszlowski was in complete command after that.
"I told our kids when we were up 4-0 that the game wasn't over," Miller said. "Any time these two teams play, you know it is going to come down to the end.
Arlington coach Dennis Drolet was pleased at how his team battled back.
"The kids kept the pressure on," Drolet said. "It was really one swing that hurt us. Their kid hit the ball off the end of the bat and it dropped in two score a couple of runs and that really hurt us."
Northside Braves 8, Mt. Prospect 4:
Mt. Prospect Post 525 was eliminated from the tournament, dropping their second game in as many days.
"We just didn't have it today," Mt. Prospect coach Jeff Daniels said. "We didn't hit as well as we normally do and when we did it was right at people."
Mt. Prospect (15-10) was led by Tyler Haffey and Daniel Hafer of Hersey who each had 2 hits. Prospect's Adrian Perez had a RBI triple and Conant's Nick Bertoli has a RBI single.