Baseball: Elk Grove takes down Dundee-Crown
Elk Grove junior pitcher Brett Taucher barely had time to be nervous.
Making his first start in only his second varsity appearance, the right-hander's teammates staked him to a 3-run lead against visiting Dundee-Crown after an inning and continued their two-out magic throughout a surprisingly easy 13-1 nonconference win in 4½ innings.
"I heard they are a good team," Taucher said of the Chargers, who entered the game with a 3-1 record. "They have a lot of good players. It's a very scary team. I was sweating bullets, actually. I guess they're all human."
The Grenadiers (3-3) scored their first run with one out in the first inning when leadoff man Christian Camacho raced home from third base on a wild pitch by D-C starting pitcher Matt Wiechmann (0-1), who was making his second start and third appearance.
The Grens added 2 more runs with two away in the inning, thanks to a run-scoring double by Chuck Fleming and A.J. Navarro's RBI single.
Thus began a game-long trend for Elk Grove, which scored 12 of its 13 runs with two outs. In the third inning, the Grenadiers scored 4 more two-out runs against Wiechmann, who in 3 innings of work was touched for 7 earned runs on 8 hits and 2 walks.
It was more of the same against D-C relief pitcher Brett Buske in the bottom of the fourth, when 6 more runs crossed with two outs.
"I kept hearing our guys yelling 'Everything after two,'" Elk Grove coach Terry Beyna said. "That's something you've got to preach to them: play every pitch and every out of every inning."
The Grenadiers managed 13 hits and took full advantage of 4 D-C errors.
"They're a good club. They hit the ball," Chargers coach Jon Anderson said. "Most of their runs were scored after two outs. If you give a good team an opportunity to capitalize, they're going to."
Seven players in the Elk Grove lineup had at least 1 hit and five enjoyed 2-hit games, including Camacho, Joe Lopez, Chuck Fleming, Mick Fontanetta and Tyelr Selvig.
"Once we jumped on them early we felt we had to keep our foot on their throat and keep scoring," said Camacho, who knocked in 4 runs on a pair of two-out hits. "We had to keep putting the ball in play and make them make the plays."
Taucher (1-0) threw 51 of his 69 pitches for strikes, including first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 20 batters he faced. He struck out 6 without issuing a walk and limited D-C to 3 hits in 5 innings.
"He goes right at hitters and, for the most part, he threw strikes," Beyna said. "He's got good stuff. He's been a nice pickup for us."
The silver lining for Dundee-Crown after a forgettable afternoon? It's still March.
"We just didn't come out ready to play," Anderson said. "This was one of those games that's bound to happen. I'm glad it happened earlier in the season rather than late in the season because we can fix this now. If we were in our last game or something, that would be a problem."