Baseball: Cary-Grove snaps St. Charles North's win streak at 19
It's a feather in the cap Cary-Grove's baseball players will wear proudly.
Future Division-I college pitchers Quinn Priester and Matt McCumber of the host Trojans combined Tuesday to snap the St. Charles North baseball team's 19-game winning streak.
Priester, a right-handed sophomore committed to Texas Christian, and McCumber, a senior right-hander headed to Northern Illinois, held the Upstate Eight River leaders to 5 hits in a 4-1 nonconference victory, not an easy feat considering St. Charles North (24-3) entered last week hitting .390 as a team.
"I think it just proves that we can hang with anyone at any given time as long as we hit the ball, play defense and pitch it like we have been," said McCumber (5-1).
The nonconference matchup between elite-level squads was scheduled to take place in St. Charles on what was supposed to be North's Teacher Appreciation Day, but the venue was changed to Cary on Tuesday afternoon due to unplayable field conditions at North.
Complicating matters for the North Stars, they were forced to make the trip without No. 3 hitter Tyler Mettetal. The South Carolina-bound senior fell ill during the school day.
Though Priester didn't enjoy pinpoint command of his off-speed pitches, his 90-mph fastball remained on point. It helped him limit the North Stars to an earned run on 4 hits over the first 3 innings. He struck out 4 and walked a pair in a 63-pitch outing.
"I don't think I had the stuff that I really needed, but I feel like I pitched well with the fastball to make up for some of the lack of breaking stuff," Priester said. "It wasn't my best start, but I kept us close until Matt got in there and shut the door."
McCumber debuted in the fourth inning by retiring the side in order. His teammates soon staked him to the lead with a 3-run fifth. Collin Walsh's leadoff double down the right-field line against St. Charles North left-handed starting pitcher Nick Skurka (4-1) set the stage for Ryan Ignoffo's RBI double, which gave Cary-Grove (19-7) its first lead.
The Trojans added 2 more runs against reliever Christian Erickson. With the bases loaded, Tommy Nielsen was hit by a pitch. Zach Willis then worked the count full and drew a walk to make it 4-1.
Cary-Grove kept the North Stars off the board in the fifth and sixth innings, thanks largely to inning-ending double plays initiated by first baseman Jake Kuhl. He started a 3-2-3 double play to end the fifth. He closed the sixth inning by fielding a hard groundball, stepping on first base and firing to second in time for a tag-out twin killing.
"He's a great leader and a great defensive player, just a fantastic team guy and he's made great plays all year," Cary-Grove coach Don Sutherland said.
"It's a really good momentum shifter if we can just make plays and stay positive about it," Kuhl said.
Though St. Charles North's school-record winning streak ended and the North Stars were outhit 14-5, coach Todd Genke remained focused on the positives.
"A 19-game winning streak? I don't know too many teams that are fortunate to have that," Genke said. "I give my team credit. We were supposed to be at home today and that quickly changed and suddenly we were (in Cary) playing a really solid team with two quality arms. But we competed. We battled. Down one of our better hitters we had some guys on base and some opportunities and that's all you can ask for going into a game. I thought we could have pitched a little bit better, but overall we walk away feeling pretty good that we battled against a really good team.
"I'd rather lose a game like this than win 10-0 and not get any knowledge about your team."