Baseball: Neuqua Valley makes it 18 wins in a row
This is how you win the first 18 games of a baseball season.
Neuqua Valley played six games sandwiched between two Saturdays, and Anthony Sterchele became the sixth starting pitcher to earn a victory during that stretch.
Only a leadoff single made it out of the infield against the junior right-hander as the Wildcats beat visiting Naperville North 10-0 in five innings in Saturday's DuPage Valley Conference matchup.
With an errorless defense behind him and another busy day at the plate from the offense, Sterchele pitched a 2-hitter with 6 strikeouts and a walk. There were nine groundball outs including a third-inning double play.
He joins Zach Wenz, Andrew Churchman, James Kulak, Kyle Pettingill and Ricky Castro in reaching the win column for the ocean-deep pitching staff since last Saturday.
And that's not including Casey Pickering, who pitched 3 scoreless innings against Lockport, or Jake Karaba and Noah Ernst, who threw scoreless innings against Naperville Central.
"Our pitching staff, out whole team is pretty solid," Sterchele said. "The offense takes a lot of pressure off the pitchers."
Jared Dunnett singled to left field to open the game, and that was the only work put in by Neuqua Valley's outfield. Naperville North starting pitcher Ryan Petrucci notched the other hit for the Huskies (12-7, 6-6) when he led off the third inning by chopping the ball off the plate and racing to first.
"It's interesting with all these pitchers," said Wildcats coach Robin Renner. "We keep trying to get them all innings, and they keep getting the job done."
Neuqua Valley's offense, meanwhile, constantly crowded the bases. The Wildcats (18-0, 12-0) loaded them in four innings as everyone in the lineup reached base at least once. Noah Herdman had a 2-run first-inning single and one of three sacrifice flies in the game. Jake Wenz and Ryan Wheeler had the other two in the third inning.
Jack Rigoni ended the game in the bottom of the fifth with an RBI single.
Naperville North, coming off a four-game winning streak, looks to get back on track in the second game of the series on Monday.
"It's been a long week, and we just didn't have great production today," said Huskies coach Carl Hunckler. "We made some mistakes in the field, we only had a couple of hits. That's not a recipe for victory."
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