Baseball: 'Adrenaline pumping' as Ashley, Grant clinch NLCC title

At 3:10 p.m. Tuesday, less than two hours before first pitch, Mikal Ashley got a surprise.

The Grant junior found out he was getting his first pitching start of the season, as the Bulldogs looked to clinch the Northern Lake County Conference baseball championship with a win at Grayslake Central.

Ashley knew the exact time because that's when Grant gets out of school. He saw the Bulldogs' starting lineup on the bulletin board outside of the locker room.

"I was, 'OK, let's go. It's game-time,' " a smiling Ashley said. "I was pumped."

So were all of his teammates.

A day after Grayslake Central's Northwestern-bound Coby Moe handed Grant its first conference loss after 15 wins and spoiled Senior Day, the Bulldogs exacted revenge. They won 9-3 behind Ashley's quality pitching performance, which he aided with a pair of hits, including his fourth homer of the season.

"Adrenaline was pumping," Ashley said.

Grant (23-5, 16-1) needed to beat defending champ Grayslake Central (23-6, 14-3) once in the teams' three-game series this week to wrap up the NLCC title. The Bulldogs shared the championship with Grayslake North two years ago in the inaugural season of the NLCC.

"We didn't want to wait around any longer," said Grant coach Dave Behm, whose team hosts Grayslake Central on Thursday. "We were ready to go today."

Behm said he didn't decide on Ashley as his starting pitcher until the morning. The hard-throwing Ashley has served as the Bulldogs' closer all season.

"I felt like we were going to be ready to bounce back, and I knew Mikal was ready," Behm said. "Even if he was going to give us only three innings, I wanted to get him in the game."

Ashley gave his team much more than that, pitching into the seventh inning. The 6-foot-1, 225-pound right-hander allowed 2 runs in his 6-plus frames, allowing 5 hits, striking out eight and walking three. It was his first mound start in his two seasons on varsity.

"We worked our butts off all year, and we just wanted to come out and play well," Ashley said. "I love our team so much."

Val Cerna's two-out, 2-run, infield single in the second off Rams starter Eric Sturm broke a 1-1 tie, and Henry Kusiak followed with a ground-rule double to make it 4-1.

Grant tacked on in the next two innings, getting a squeeze-bunt RBI from Joe Gorden and a run-scoring double from Cerna.

Third baseman Kusiak aided Ashley with a defensive gem in the fifth. Trailing 6-2, Grayslake Central put its first two runners on base to bring up leadoff batter Nic Presutti. Presutti popped up a bunt in foul territory and Kusiak laid out to make diving catch. The Rams didn't score in the inning.

"Insane," Ashley said of Kusiak's putout. "He's been making plays like that all year."

"He was pitching well," Kusiak said. "I had to help him out."

Danny Laughery added an RBI double in the sixth, before Ashley cleared the left-field fence with Carlos Martinez aboard in the seventh. Ashley's first hit was an infield single.

Grant also got a double from recent freshman call-up Joe Taylor. He started at shortstop and is the brother of junior Jimmy Taylor, who record the final three outs.

"All of us love each other," said Kusiak, who, like Ashley and Gorden, was a member of Grant's basketball team that won the NLCC championship in the winter. "Juniors, seniors ... we have so much chemistry together. It's not like just one class."

Grayslake Central got doubles from Nate Mieszkowski, Antonio Crews and Nate Twardock.

"Grant took it to us," Rams coach Troy Whalen said. "These guys have had a great season. To be undefeated coming into the final series, you don't do that by mistake. We were fortunate enough in (Monday's) game to have the best pitcher on the field, and it shows that one guy can dominate a game. But we knew coming back today they were going to be ready, and they were. They just outplayed us and out-hustled us."