Baseball: Metea Valley goes extra mile vs. Wheaton North to snap skid
It was going to take a little something extra for Metea Valley's baseball team to break its losing streak.
A lot extra, in fact.
The Mustangs went nine innings to snap a five-game losing streak with Friday's 8-5 DuPage Valley Conference victory at Wheaton North.
Relievers Gio Martinez and Jake Kmiecik held the Falcons (9-4, 5-1) scoreless for the final six innings. Kmiecik nailed down the victory in the final four innings, retiring the last eight batters he faced.
Metea Valley (5-7, 2-5) broke through in the top of the ninth with 3 runs on 3 errors and a wild pitch. After seeing several innings like that go against them, the Mustangs finally had one go their way.
"I knew I might be coming in to relieve, so I just stayed prepared," Kmiecik said. "I just put my head down and competed in the field, at the plate and on the mound. We fought hard today."
Wheaton North claimed a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the third when Joe Klein launched a grand slam over the left-field fence. The Mustangs immediately thwarted that momentum, rallying to tie it in the fourth on Cade Sullivan's RBI double and Andrew Cronin's run-scoring single.
Metea Valley didn't commit an error and received 8 hits from the top four hitters in the order as 15 players contributed.
"We've been beating ourselves a lot lately, so it was good to see us bounce back," said Mustangs coach Craig Tomczak. "I give the guys a lot of credit. They showed a lot of guts today."
Metea Valley scored 3 runs in the first inning on Clay Billadeau's RBI single and Spencer Collins' 2-run double. Jackson Gray's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the first pulled the Falcons within 3-1.
"A lot of great team wins over the last week and today was a team loss," said Wheaton North coach Dan Schoessling. "We just didn't get it done, but we'll try to come back and get them tomorrow. We missed a lot of chances offensively and made some mistakes defensively. It came back to bite us."
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