Baseball: Unbeaten Willowbrook shuts out Glenbard East
Even the cold weather can't slow down Jack Nilles and the Willowbrook baseball team.
Playing in sub-40 degree weather on Friday morning, the Warriors ran their unbeaten streak to begin the 2017 season to six games with a 10-0 victory over Glenbard East at Lee Pfund Stadium in Carol Stream.
"The start's been awesome and it's because we are doing all of the little things," Willowbrook coach Vic Wisner said. "We knew coming in that we were going to be young so the big focus in the off-season was defense. We knew we could be good defensively. And we grind out at-bats, they see a lot of pitches.
"The more they see it, the more they believe and right now, the kids are buying in."
Nilles, one of five sophomores on the roster, tossed a complete-game shutout, striking out five while allowing just three hits in six innings of work. He improved to 2-0 on the young season.
"I was really nervous at the beginning of the season, but it has calmed down," said Nilles, one of three sophomores in the pitching rotation. "And when we score four runs in the first inning, that really calms the nerves. I was just throwing strikes, getting quick groundball outs. And our defense made all of the plays."
Indeed, Willowbrook jumped out to a quick 4-0 advantage, with Mike Dembowski and Trevor Jaloszynski both contributing RBI singles in the opening frame. A sacrifice fly from Dembowski followed in the second before an RBI hit by Kyle Ferguson helped make it 7-0 in the third.
Ben Espinoza ended the contest by knocking in two runs with a single in the sixth.
Billy Davis had a double for the Rams, who fell to 2-4 on the year.
"The first inning didn't start out the way we wanted it to," Glenbard East coach Joel Pelland said. "It hurts when you give up four in the first. And their guy threw well. That's a good group, they are young and they are good.
"But I told the guys, we are 2-4 now and all of our losses have kind of been self-inflicted. If we can get our minds under control and play seven innings of good ball, we can compete with anybody."
Willowbrook finished with 13 hits. Ferguson was 2-of-3 with 2 RBI and Jon Kelso, Alec Michaelson, Ryan Mintz and Jaloszynski all had 2 hits.
"We just collect runs," Nilles said. "They have quality at-bats and we are fast, we have a lot of athletic people on this team. So we can take bases when we need to. We are doing the little things right and we play well as a team."