Baseball: Geneva blanks Elgin
The Geneva varsity baseball team is finding out that sometimes less is more. After dropping a couple close battles to St. Charles East last week the Vikings have bounced back with four straight wins.
The latest was a 6-inning 10-0 Upstate Eight Conference River Division victory at Elgin on Wednesday.
The secret has been surprisingly simple.
"Those were a couple tough losses against East," Geneva coach Brad Wendell said. "I felt like everyone was trying to do a little too much. So we have got back to keeping it simple. Staying in the moment. Doing our jobs. Focusing on doing those little things right because all those little things can make a big difference."
Wendell was very pleased with the simplified approach on Wednesday.
"It all starts with putting the ball in play," Wendell said. "We made them field and throw by putting the ball in play. I also liked the way our pitchers threw strikes."
The Vikings (9-5, 5-2) used 3 pitchers in throwing a combined 2-hit shutout. Noah Davison started and faced the minimum over 3 innings, striking out 4 batters and walking 1. Matt Evert came on in relief and tossed one scoreless inning. Tyler Venditti closed out the last 2 innings. He allowed both hits and a pair of walks, but struck out 4 batters.
"I thought Noah had good command of the strike zone and was keeping it down," Wendell said. "We wanted to get the other guys some work and they all threw well."
Dominic Guido provided the Vikings with some offensive punch. He drove in a run on a groundout in the first and then had a big 3-run double in a 5-run sixth inning.
"I've been trying not to overthink it at the plate," Guido said. "I'm just trying to stay right on the pitch and square it up."
Jack Olson added an RBI single in the first inning as the Vikings jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Garrett Bragg added an RBI single in the third inning. The Vikings other four runs came with the help of 6 Elgin errors.
The Maroons (3-11, 2-5) had a couple chances to score, but squandered a bases loaded one-out opportunity in the fifth inning. They also had a runner thrown out at home in the second inning trying to score on a fly ball.
Kyle Coates started for Elgin and went the distance.
Hayden Gibson and Carlos Esparza had the only 2 hits for the Maroons.
"We have been playing better the past couple weeks," Elgin coach David Foerster said. "But today we took a step back. We gave up too many extra outs and didn't have enough offense. We are seeing some really good competition so hopefully that benefits us in the long run."