Batavia Bulldogs pitching themselves to top of WSC
Two Western Sun Conference series down and the Batavia baseball team is still perfect.
The Bulldogs ran their conference winning streak to 6 games - and 8 overall - with a 5-1 victory over DeKalb Thursday.
The Barbs (10-5, 2-4) scored just 3 runs in the 3 games against Batavia (9-4, 6-0), who will go for its ninth straight win Saturday against West Aurora.
After a pair of strong starts last week against Rochelle and Waubonsie Valley ended in no-decisions, exchange student Henry DuQue picked up his first win Thursday. DuQue didn't allow a hit through 5 innings, turning the game to Kevin Flinn after a leadoff infield single in the sixth.
"I walked two guys, I don't like that, but I was feeling good today," said DuQue, who is from Venezuela and seemed to enjoy the warmest day of the spring as much as his strong start. "Good weather. Felt like home. I like that it is starting to warm up."
DuQue struck out three while evening his record at 1-1.
"We weren't scoring for him. It was good to finally get him a win. He's given us great starts," said Batavia coach Matt Holm, who also praised the way his team hit to right field.
Two of the shots to right came in the first inning. Tim Drish tripled home Joe Aguliar on a shot to deep right. Brian Krolikowski's sacrifice fly to right made it 2-0.
Aguliar scored again in the third, then Adam Karger extended the lead to 5-0 in the sixth when he followed Jordan Coffey's second double of the game with a 2-run homer to left center.
Karger tagged a fastball from DeKalb starter Jake Lemay.
"I struggled the first two at-bats," Karger said. "I was just looking for something over the plate that I could get my hands straight to the ball and drive it."
It was Karger's second home run of the season. The first helped ignite a seventh-inning comeback last week against Rochelle.
"He's a little more of a power hitter than people think," Holm said. "We're starting to see the pop out of the bats. Early in the year we struggled because we left so many people on base."
Leadoff hitter Tim Schofield joined Coffey with a pair of hits.
Lemay took the loss for DeKalb, falling to 3-1. The Barbs have seen enough of Batavia after entering this week's series with a 10-2 record and then getting outscored 27-3.
"We had a lot better energy, a lot better effort than last night," DeKalb coach Justin Keck said. "You have to tip your hat to Batavia. They are a solid program, they are deep in pitching, they have had one guy after another after another throwing the ball hard having good breaking stuff. Offensively they do a nice job of putting the ball in play consistently. They had a real wonderful series."