Baseball: Castro, Neuqua Valley have answer to Wheaton North rally
Neuqua Valley senior pitcher Ricky Castro needed a response to early adversity in Friday's DuPage Valley Conference game at Wheaton North.
K, K, K, K, K, K, K.
After surrendering 2 runs on a pair of hits and two hit batters in the first inning, Castro settled down and Neuqua Valley's bats eventually came alive in a 9-2 victory in the first game of a key three-game series.
Wheaton North (16-7, 12-4) had the bases loaded with nobody out when Joe Klein delivered a 2-run double. With runners on second and third, Castro struck out the next three batters to start a streak of seven straight strikeouts.
Castro didn't allow another hit in his 6 innings while striking out 10. The unbeaten Wildcats exploded for 7 runs in the final two innings, sealing the victory and expanding their first-place DVC lead to 3.5 games over Wheaton North.
The series continues Saturday and Monday.
"They had fire in their eyes coming at us today," Castro said. "We weren't really there at the beginning, myself in particular. I kind of kicked in after the first inning and I progressively got better."
Castro retired 10 straight and 17 of the final 20 batters he faced after the 2-run double. Jake Karaba struck out the side in the bottom of the seventh to end the game.
The Falcons' 2-0 lead soon faded. Jack Rigoni's solo homer in the second and a third-inning wild pitch with a runner on third tied the game for Neuqua Valley (21-0, 15-0).
Wheaton North starter Jackson Pastore kept the score at 2-2 until the sixth inning, when he was removed with one out because of a blister on his finger that opened up.
"We definitely felt like we needed to come away with more than two in that first inning," said Falcons coach Dan Schoessling. "We weren't able to put the ball in play as much as we wanted to. We played with them for five innings, but that's not going to be good enough against a team like that."
Rigoni added a 2-run opposite-field homer and Ethan Schreier singled in an insurance run in the sixth inning. The Wildcats added 4 runs in the seventh, highlighted by Evan Ranneklev's 2-run home run and RBI singles by Trevor Tesmond and Noah Ernst.
"We were a little slow getting off the bus, honestly," Rigoni said. "Their 2-run first inning was a big wake-up call for us. We just kind of exploded after that. It kind of drove us."
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