Baseball: Bartlett warms up in win over West Chicago
An unusually cold, gray April has been rough on baseball teams like Bartlett and West Chicago.
Each Upstate Eight Valley team played once in the five days leading up to Thursday's game, which Bartlett won 8-5, and that was against each other on Tuesday.
The thermometer read 52 degrees when the Hawks and host Wildcats took the field at Pioneer Park under skies so bright a West Chicago infielder actually lost a popup in the blinding sun. Baseball weather? Not exactly, but it seemed downright tropical compared to the conditions teams have been forced to play through lately.
"I actually felt my hands today," Bartlett relief pitcher Max Lewis said.
"Usually, I have like three layers on. Today I had the nice two," Bartlett catcher Matt Angelone said. "I didn't even have to wear the extra pair of pants."
The pants Angelone wore were of the big-boy variety. The junior catcher went 3-for-3 with a double and 2 RBI to help the Hawks improve to 4-5 overall. Bartlett is off to a 3-0 start in the UEC Valley.
"It's awesome because we definitely had a slow start to the season so things are starting to turn in the right direction for us," Angelone said. "It's nice to say we've got a 3-game winning streak, all in conference. Let's hope we can keep putting the wins together and have a fun ride this year."
The game was moved to West Chicago due to an unplayable field at Bartlett. The Hawks drew first blood in the bottom of the second inning, courtesy of Angelo. The right-handed hitter fought off an inside fastball and poked it down the right-field line for a topspin single, scoring senior Joseph Tomazin, who led off with a single. A second run crossed while the Wildcats turned a double play.
West Chicago (3-10, 0-2) drew even in the top of the third on a run-scoring single by senior Cade McHenry, which followed a bases-loaded walk issued by Bartlett starting pitcher Nico Natali.
However, Bartlett kept adding runs. The Hawks scored 3 in the third inning on 3 hits and 2 of West Chicago's 4 errors. They enjoyed a 2-run fourth via Andrew Fehr's RBI single and a sacrifice fly by Tomazin, who went 1-for-3 and drove in 3 runs batting cleanup. Angelo led off the fifth inning with a double and scored on senior Tyler Yang's single to extend the lead to 8-3.
The Hawks needed the insurance. West Chicago scored twice in the sixth inning on 4 hits, including consecutive RBI singles by seniors Michael Sawicki and Matt Natzke.
The Wildcats twice brought the tying run to the plate, but Lewis induced a fly out to right field and a groundball to Yang at shortstop to protect the 3-run cushion.
Bartlett reliever Geno Frieri retired the side in order in the seventh inning with 2 strikeouts to earn the save for Natali. He limited West Chicago to 3 runs (1 earned) on 7 hits in 3⅔ innings, struck out five and issued a walk.
"We've been grinding all year and it's going to be nice when we finally come back and win a game like that," West Chicago coach TJ Nall said. "(Bartlett) did a good job of throwing strikes and making pitches when they had to and that's kind of the name of the game. We didn't play too well defensively. We made a couple of defensive miscues that led to a few more runs for them. I thought our guys threw the ball well and we grinded out some at-bats, but it just wasn't our day."
Left fielder Carter Tijerina went 3-for-4 and Billy Lietzow and Bobby Bartlett each went 2-for-4 with a double for West Chicago.