Baseball: Waubonsie Valley doesn't wait on the long ball
Cole Gregorio's first-inning home run looked like the first of many long balls with the wind gusting straight out to center field.
Turned out that was it.
Gregorio nearly launched another in the sixth inning, but Waubonsie Valley found other ways to drive in runs while beating Naperville North 7-4 in Friday's DuPage Valley Conference matchup in Aurora.
The Warriors (4-9, 2-1) scored in each of the first five innings to maintain their distance from Naperville North (4-4, 0-2). Gregorio's fourth homer of the season looked nice to the home crowd, but peppering away with 11 hits also got the offense rolling.
"We weren't focusing on hitting home runs even though the wind was cranking out," said Gregorio, who doubled in the sixth. "We just wanted to have good approaches at the plate, make good contact and see what happens. I happened to make good contact with one, and it went over."
Waubonsie Valley kept the momentum from Thursday's win over the Huskies that broke a five-game losing streak. Gregorio's homer made it 2-0, then Ivan Wong's 2-run single doubled the lead to 4-0 in the second inning.
The Huskies narrowed the gap to 4-3 in the top of the third when Ben Lindflott singled home a run and Mike Bruebach followed with a 2-run single. The Warriors, though, added a run in each of their next three trips to the plate including Will Cullen's fifth-inning RBI double.
"With the conditions today, it was very conducive to hitting," said Naperville North coach Jim Chiappetta. "You had to have the mindset to score every inning. And credit to them. They were able to manufacture a few. We had some chances, but we weren't able to push something across."
Winning pitcher Sebastian Koldoff scattered 9 hits in 6⅓ innings. Will Jaynes, who singled twice, notched the final two outs for the save. Huskies starter Connor Genovese pitched into the fifth inning.
"We've been a little off at times, but today was nice to see Sebastian throwing strikes and keeping guys off balance," said Warriors coach Bryan Acevedo. "And our offense kept adding on. No lead is safe on a day like today."
Twitter: @kevin_schmit