Baseball: Fujiu, Fremd blank St. Charles East
Victor Fujiu stretched himself out a bit further for Fremd Wednesday to help the Vikings come up with a win.
Fujiu pitched 6 solid innings of shutout ball as Fremd blanked St. Charles East 4-0 in a nonconference baseball game at Heritage Park in Wheeling.
"We are always in the game and have a chance to win when Vic pitches," Fremd coach Chris Piggott said. "Sometimes he tries to do too much, but that's because he is competitive. I don't discourage him from that."
Last week in his first start against Cary-Grove, Fujiu left after 5 innings with the Vikings leading 2-1. The early season start and the cold had taken a toll on the junior. But after he left the game it was a disaster for Fremd, which lost 12-4.
Fujiu didn't want that to happen Wednesday.
His team led 3-0 after 5 innings and Fujiu pushed his way through the sixth inning. He gave up a single and walk and St. Charles East had runners on first and second with one out.
Fujiu induced the next batter to ground the ball down the first baseline. Fujiu raced to the line and picked up the ball and then tagged the runner before he reached first. Fujiu then struck the next batter for the final out of the inning.
"It felt good out there today," said Fujiu, who allowed just 4 hits and struck out 7.
"I can trust my stuff and let them hit the ball and I know the plays will be made behind me. My arm feels good."
Fremd (2-2) spotted Fujiu the three runs thanks to some key hitting and poor defense at times by St. Charles East (1-3-1).
Fremd pushed a pair of runs across the plate in the bottom of the third banging out 5 hits and taking advantage of 2 errors by the Saints.
Nick Rattin laid down a nice bunt for an infield single and went to second on a throwing error. Rattin advance to third on Tommy Wingen's single to right and then scored when Wingen stole second and the throw bounced into second base.
Wingen scored on Brent Swanson's RBI single to make it 2-0. Fremd loaded the bases on singles by Luke Seidel and Will Josten, but Saint pitcher Jeremy Cox got a strike out to end ten threat.
The Vikings added another run in the fifth. Wingen walked and scored on Swenson's triple to make it 3-0.
"It felt good," Swenson said. "My teammates got on base and in a position to score. I was just looking to get the next guy up to bat."
After Fujiu retired St. Charles East in the top of the sixth, Fremd added an insurance run. Wingen, who is a lefty, hit an opposite field triple down the third-base line, scoring Tom Cermak who led off the inning with a single.
"I was just trying to get on base," Wingen said. "We knew Fooj was coming out, so we wanted have as much insurance as we could. I was looking to go the other way. I was thinking three bases all the way."
Peter Hiller walked the first two Saints to lead off the seventh in relief of Fujiu. He then got a patented 6-4-3 double play and a fly out to left field to end the threat.
"We are young," said Piggott, whose team started eight juniors and two seniors. "We play a tough schedule and we are going to take some lumps early until these guys figure things out. By the end of the year, I think we will be really tough."
Seidel, whose team will play some of its home games at Heritage Park because of the construction on Fremd's home field, said that he liked the spacious field in Wheeling.
"It's really different out here," said Seidel, who had 2 hits. "There is a lot of room here."
St. Charles East coach Len Asquini said that the Saints couldn't come up with key hits.
"Our execution was poor today," said Asquini, whose team left 9 runners in base.
"Offensively we are trying to create a little wiggle room. Our pitchers throw very well. And we have been getting that all year. But our offense has been struggling that we have zero room for a mistake."