Baseball: Kaneland routs Yorkville

Jack Douglas was not in his customary first-base fielding position for the Kaneland baseball team Thursday afternoon in Yorkville.

But when called upon to pinch hit, Douglas delivered in the top of the fifth inning.

Douglas plated a pair of runners with a drive to the left-center gap; the Foxes never truly recovered in the finale of a three-game Northern Illinois Big XII East game.

Kaneland continued to pour gas on the fire as Douglas' 2-run double launched a 16-2 victory for the Knights.

The Knights (6-4, 1-2) salvaged the final game of the conference series against Yorkville (8-4, 2-1) in the six-inning contest.

"It was the first game I didn't start," Douglas said.

"We just told (Douglas), 'Hey, because you're out (of the starting lineup) doesn't mean you're out totally,' " Kaneland coach Brian Aversa said.' He came up at an opportune time and cranked a double for us."

"I was looking for a curveball," Douglas said. "(Yorkville's Grant Weiland) threw a few to the previous batters."

Douglas' 2-run drive broke a 2-2 tie, and it proved to be all the support Kaneland southpaw starter Angel Acevedo would require.

Acevedo had a career game to earn his first win of the season.

By fanning the side in order to begin the Foxes' first, Acevedo ultimately finished with 13 strikeouts against 5 hits.

Like his counterpart Weiland, Acevedo stranded the bases loaded in the third inning to keep the game close.

"The beginning of the game it was about finding control and throwing strikes," Acevedo said. "Yorkville is very good, especially at hitting the ball."

"He had much better control," Aversa said of his starter.

Acevedo had a central task in mind to combat the explosive Foxes, the defending divisional champion who won 30 games last season.

"I tried to mix my breaking ball all throughout the game," Acevedo said. "I had been having trouble at throwing it for a strike."

The sixth inning was a toxic mixture of Kaneland offensive chemistry and self-implosion for Yorkville.

The Foxes' penchant for issuing free passes - 11 walks in all - and porous defensive play hit a nightmarish apex for Yorkville as Kaneland attacked with abandon.

Kaneland scored 11 runs in the sixth inning as Luke Gomes' opposite-field 3-run blast came five batters after Rob Dudzinski snaked a line drive just inside the left-field foul pole.

Dudzinski also had 3 RBI in the inning as he later drove home another run with a single.

"This was my first (home run) of the season," Dudzinski said. "They are a really good team, and we just found our hitting at one point."