Baseball: Shepley's sharp as Grayslake Central blanks North

It was kind of a fluke.

That's how junior Justin Shepley got his start as a pitcher for Grayslake Central.

The Rams were playing a summer ball game last year against Waukegan and were out of arms. Shepley, a shortstop, was asked if he could step in and pitch a little.

"I came in and pitched pretty good and the coaches were like, 'We need to work with you,' " Shepley said. "And ever since then, I've been working on pitching and doing better."

Shepley evened his record on the mound this season to 3-3 on Friday by leading host Grayslake Central to a 2-0 win over rival Grayslake North in cold and driving rain.

The win moves the Rams to 15-13 on the season.

Shepley pitched a complete game and spread out six hits over seven innings. He had 4 strikeouts and just 2 walks.

"Justin is a good athlete and we kind of had him pegged as our shortstop," Grayslake Central coach Troy Whalen said. "But you start looking at needs and he passed that eye test (during the summer game against Waukegan). It looked like he had good command.

"And Justin has just been a bulldog for us on the mound. He's going to be something special next year if he stays healthy. He can throw multiple pitches in all different situations for strikes."

Shepley got out of a couple of jams, including a last-stand effort by Grayslake North (14-16) in the top of the seventh.

The Knights, thanks in part to a double by Stefan Davis (3-for-4), had two runners on before Shepley eventually retired the side.

In the second inning, Shepley loaded the bases but freshman third baseman Coby Moe came up with a big line-drive catch to end the inning and prevent at least two runs from scoring. Freshman shortstop Kevin O'Brien also made some big plays in the clutch.

"We picked the ball today. This is kind of what we are. When we pick the ball, we're pretty good. And our young guys are pretty good at doing that," Whalen said. "But it's tough as a freshman to play any varsity sport, I don't care what sport it is. But our freshmen, I told them, 'You aren't freshmen anymore. Academically, maybe you're still freshmen, but you're varsity players now.'

"It's a credit to our 13 seniors. On a lot of teams, the seniors probably wouldn't be so happy that they're not playing and freshmen are. But our seniors are great big brothers to these young kids. They've showed them the ropes. I think that's what has made this team special."

Grayslake Central got all of its offense in the fifth inning when center fielder Ben Fitzgerald drove in Ryan Mikes and Kyle Allen with a single to left field. Fitzgerald is hitting .500 in the month of May.

"He was the right guy to have up and put a good swing on," Whalen said.

Grayslake North starter Brendan Taskovic says he thought the pitch to Fitzgerald was a good one.

"I threw a low change-up. He forked it out, it bounced and made it out to the outfield and that's just baseball," Taskovic said. "We talked about this game all week. We always want to play them. It's a playoff atmosphere. It was a good test for us."

The two teams will match up again tomorrow in a game at Grayslake North.

"Our kids came out to play and we had opportunities," Grayslake North coach Brett Hill said. "I thought Brendan (Taskovic) pitched great. The kid (Fitzgerald) who drove in the runs just had a great at-bat. Really good piece of hitting by him.

"We just got out-baseballed today."