Baseball: St. Edward takes advantage of Streamwood defense

The St. Edward baseball team was due for a few breaks, and Streamwood decided to give all those breaks to the Green Wave in the same inning.

The visiting Sabres led 2-0 in the sixth at Elgin's Wing Park Friday until shaky defense undermined a terrific performance from sophomore Colin Caminitti in an eventual 3-2 victory for St. Edward (4-9).

Streamwood (1-10) failed to make plays on playable groundballs by Tyler Holte and Mike Lopez. St. Edward pitcher Jason Allen followed with a perfectly placed bunt to load the bases with no outs for Dylan Murray, who laced a run-scoring single to left field to trim the deficit to 2-1.

One out later, Matthew Schimbke worked the count to 3-1 before lifting a sacrifice fly to left, scoring Lopez and knotting the score 2-2.

"We just weren't getting good looks on him," Schimbke said of St. Edward's struggles against Caminitti, who limited the Wave to 3 unearned runs on 5 hits without a walk and struck out 5 in 6 innings. "We just needed to settle in and take what we need."

Making his second varsity start since being called up last Saturday, Caminitti (0-2) was one strike away from escaping the sixth inning with the game still tied. However, a passed ball in a 2-2 count allowed Allen to race home from third base with the go-ahead run.

"I knew we were going to get some breaks," Allen said. "We were battling the whole game. Not having that many wins this year, it's kind of tough to battle, but we found a way."

Allen (1-1) made quick work of the Sabres in the top of the seventh. The senior notched a strikeout with his reliable curveball and his teammates completed an errorless performance by fielding a groundball and a flyball to retire the side in order.

"He threw about six one-pitch outs," St. Edward coach Tim Dovichi said. "He wasn't going deep in counts and he wasn't walking guys. He just relied on his defense and let them hit it. And our defense really stepped up from the last couple of games. We've been averaging 8-10 errors a game because five of our guys are either freshmen or sophomores."

Allen needed only 75 pitches to throw a 4-hit complete game in which he allowed 2 earned runs, thereby lowering his ERA to 1.66. He issued a walk and struck out a pair.

The loss was the 10th straight for the Sabres, who were unable to capitalize on Caminitti's fine outing.

"It kills me that we have to put an L next to his name," Streamwood coach Ryan Lasota said. "We should have been giving him his first game ball for his first varsity win. He pitched well. He had 1 or 2 walks, he pounded the zone, he fielded his position and he did everything you'd want him to do as a pitcher. We just didn't back him up very well. I think we finished with 4 errors. We had a baserunning mistake. We only had 4 hits.

"We didn't do a lot to help him out. We did it to ourselves."