advertisement

Baseball: Huntley slips past Cary-Grove

Even with its bats quieted and its defense uncharacteristically shaky, Huntley found a way to win.

The Red Raiders scored 6 runs in the fifth inning on just 3 hits and held on to beat Cary-Grove, 7-5, in a Fox Valley Conference baseball showdown in Huntley Tuesday.

Logan DeWulf escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fifth to notch the win in relief, and Adam Smylie smacked 3 of the Raiders' 5 hits.

The Raiders stuck to their game plan against Cary starter Quinn Priester.

"Our game plan going in was to try to get his pitch count up, and try to get into their bullpen, and see if we could get him out in the fifth," said Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski. "We tried to put the ball in play as much as we could. We said before the game that if we strike out five times or less we'll put ourselves in good position. We struck out more than five times, but we got his pitch count up."

Priester struck out 8, six of them looking, but couldn't get out of the fifth, thanks in part to 4 errors behind him in that inning.

Huntley had 3 hits in the frame, none bigger than Denny Smith's 2-out, 2-run single that put the Red Raiders ahead to stay.

"Out of our last 11 wins, that's our eighth or ninth comeback win in the late innings," Jakubowski said.

It was a tough day for the Trojans (13-6, 8-5), who built a 5-1 lead after 4 ½ innings. RBI by Collin Walsh and leadoff man Ryan Ignoffo keyed a 3-run second inning. C-G added a pair in the fifth, with Tommy Neilson and Zach Willis driving in the runs.

But the Trojans committed 6 errors in all, making all 7 Huntley runs unearned.

"They made 3 errors and gave us the lead, and we made several errors and gave it back," said Cary-Grove coach Don Sutherland. "Another one of those days. That's the way we've been playing. If we get that straightened out, we can win. If we can't get that straightened out, we won't."

Huntley (16-3, 8-1) didn't make things easy on its starter, Cameron Reed, either.

"We made an uncharacteristic 3 errors behind him," said Jakubowski. "I told the guys I don't think we made 3 errors all last week in 5 games, so that's obviously something we've got to clean up."

Neilson finished with 3 hits for Cary, and Justin Trausch had a pair.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.