Lake Zurich 10, Zion-Benton 0
In baseball, no-hitters certainly are rare -- but perfect games are downright extraordinary.
Lake Zurich pitcher Ryan Morrill faced 15 batters in 5 innings Thursday -- and set down all of them.
Morrill could have pitched more, but thanks to the Bears' big bats, the game ended 10-0 after five innings because of the mercy rule.
The Bears improved to 8-3 and are undefeated in the North Suburban Conference Lake Division at 3-0.
Morrill struck out 10 en route to the first perfect game of his career.
According to his coach Gary Simon, it was also the first perfect game Simon's seen in his coaching career.
"This is the first once I've seen since I've been coaching, and I've been coaching for 27 years," Simon said. "His changeup was really working tonight. He could've thrown that pitch every time and it would've been the same result."
What made his performance even more impressive was that Morrill was coming off an injury.
Morrill injured his shoulder during indoor training and has been pitching on a limited basis ever since.
"This was my first game back from the DL, so I just wanted to go out there and throw strikes," Morrill said. "I thought I was going to be in maybe 4 innings. But this was the best I've felt in a long time, so I just kept it going."
Zion-Benton's bats were so quiet that the Zee-Bees (1-8, 0-3) put just three balls into play.
By contrast, the Bears' bats boomed.
Cory Halicke led the way with 3 doubles and 3 RBI. Halicke finished 3-for-3 with a walk.
Reid Bergstrom went 2-for-3 with 2 RBI, including a run-scoring double in the first.
Steve Cleary went 3-for-3 with an RBI and a double. Dan Zummo drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.