Baseball:Montini can't get bats going vs. LT
Sam Frieze is not one of Lyons Township's better-known pitchers.
He's not even going to play in college.
But the 5-foot-9, 140-pound senior might have made a name for himself Friday. Frieze scattered 6 hits over 4⅓ innings to lead the Lions to a 9-2 victory over host Montini in a battle of unbeatens in Lombard.
"He's a senior and we're looking for him to fill a reliever-type spot early in the season, but due to some injuries, we're looking for a third and fourth starter when our conference season rolls around," Lyons coach Kevin Diete said. "We're hoping that he can fill one of those two spots."
Frieze filled in quite nicely in getting big outs when he needed to against the Broncos (3-1), who put at least one runner on base in every inning except the first but stranded 9.
The Lions (3-0) led 4-0 before the Broncos loaded the bases on an infield hit and two walks after two were out in the bottom of the third inning. But Frieze struck out the cleanup hitter, opposing pitcher Alex Luda, on three pitches to end that threat.
"He kept us definitely on our toes," Montini designated hitter Nick Malik said. "He was very good mixing up fastball, curveball, changeup."
Malik knocked Frieze from the game when he belted a 2-run homer to right in the fifth, cutting the gap to 5-2.
The Broncos again brought the tying run to the plate when Ben Steiner reached on an error and Jake Karczewski walked, but reliever Ian Delleman fanned Rob Mrazek.
Delleman got the save with 2⅔ hitless innings of work, walking 1 and striking out 4.
"With our pitchers we're just trying to get them to hit their spots and make sure that they're keeping the ball low in the zone," Diete said. "First couple innings I don't think Sam kept the ball low in the zone, which allowed them to get a few more hits.
"But after that he seemed like he settled down a little bit more and was able to get out of those tough situations."
The early deficit was a new situation for the Broncos, who didn't respond well.
"We didn't really get the clutch hitting we needed today," Montini coach Rich Janor said. "We had a couple mistakes and against a good team like this, that's not going to fly.
"(That was the) first time we've been down all year. We've just got to find some more fight and some more energy. This was not our best effort today, but the other team played pretty well. They were hitting the ball around the yard."
Indeed, seven players combined for 11 hits off four Montini pitchers. Matt Phillipp, Justin Williams and Bryce Moskiewicz each had 2 hits and Michael Courtney had a 2-run single for LT.
Karczewski and Ryan Nelson paced Montini with 2 hits each.