Baseball: Glenbard East takes down South Elgin again

Jake Heyman isn't really a fan of postgame interviews.

But if he keeps pitching the way he did Tuesday, he's going to be doing a lot more of them in the coming weeks.

"I'm never good at these," the senior Glenbard East starting pitcher said with a sheepish grin after hurling a 5-hit shutout in the Rams' 2-0 victory over South Elgin, in the second of a 3-game series that will conclude at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at East. The Rams can sweep thanks to a 9-2 win Monday.

Heyman struck out 7 - 4 looking - and walked only 1. That performance improved East to 24-7 overall and 17-2 in the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division with 3 games to play. In second is the Storm, now 17-8 and 14-4 with 4 games to play.

So what was working for Heyman?

"All my off-speed stuff, and coach kept calling it," Heyman said. "It definitely worked, because they either weren't swinging or they just weren't ready for it."

"Heyman had some big pitches in big situations," Rams coach Joel Pelland added. "His fastball at times was very good, but he did a great job of locating his breaking ball early in counts in order to get ahead of hitters."

Heyman wasn't infallible. He had runners on first and third with 1 out in the second, but struck out Patrick Keaty swinging and Bryant Diel looking. From there it was smooth sailing until the top of the seventh, when he gave up a long double to sophomore Nate Gomez. Pelland replaced him with Ryan Schefske, who retired his three hitters for his third save in three tries.

"We had opportunities to score with runners in scoring position with one or two outs, and that's kind of been our snafu right now," said Storm coach Jim Kating. "When you're playing a quality team, if you don't push runs across when you have opportunities, this is the result."

Hard to believe, but South Elgin starter Jack Stancl was almost as good as Heyman, giving up 3 hits and striking out 7. But the junior also issued 4 walks and was the victim of bad luck that led to both runs.

With runners on first and third and 2 out in the fifth inning, Phil Abruzino's infield grounder bounded away the fielder into left field, allowing Jacob Behrendt to score.

An inning later, another error on a sharp grounder hit by Brett Bushka allowed Jack Moran to score.

"I was trying to throw strikes the best I could," said Stancl, who fell to 5-2. "I was feeling extremely well today, super warmed up, super loose, and confident about who we are."