It's down to the wire as C-G hangs on

As it should when two good teams meet on the baseball field, Cary-Grove's 4-3 victory over Huntley came down to the final at-bat Monday.

The crossover matchup between two of the top clubs in the Fox Valley Conference was moved from Huntley to Cary, where the field was wet but playable. The Red Raiders remained the home team and threatened to tie the score in the bottom of the seventh against Cary-Grove starting pitcher Corey Bruns.

Left-handed hitting senior Tanner Funke gave Huntley (12-2-1) a chance to knot it up. He laced a one-out double to the wall in right-center field.

Bruns, who will pitch next season at West Point, responded by striking out Garrick Penrod before Jordan Contreras lined sharply but right at Trojans second baseman Mark Thomson to end the game.

"They're a real good team," Bruns said of Huntley. "One through nine can hit, even their No. 9 hitter on that last out of the game hit a shot. We love to win these 1-run games."

Contreras smoked Bruns' final pitch to no avail. "It's tough," Contreras said. "All I had to do is put the ball in play and try to get the run in but, hey, it was right at him."

Bruns improved to 3-2 on the season with a complete-game, 3-hitter. He allowed 3 earned runs, struck out nine and walked four.

Two of Bruns' bases on balls were issued to Huntley leadoff hitters in the fifth and sixth innings, and both came around to score. A Contreras groundout scored Funke in the fifth to pull the Red Raiders within 4-2. Phil Pupillo walked in the sixth, and courtesy runner Matt Szytz later scored on a sharp single to right-center by cleanup hitter Jimmy Gordon.

Cary-Grove (10-5-1) was limited to 6 hits by Huntley starting pitcher Craig Lipp (3-1), but 4 of them were of the extra-base variety and led to single runs for the Trojans in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings.

Bruns doubled home Nick Hammonds in the second to give the Trojans a 1-0 lead. Thomson's line drive to center field in the third inning was misplayed into a leadoff triple, and he later scored on Luke Mottashed's groundout to put Cary-Grove ahead 2-1. Bruns doubled to lead off the fourth and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly from Stephen Hapanovich to make it 3-1 Trojans.

Shortstop Chris Waylock gave Cary-Grove a 4-1 lead when he hammered a fastball, Lipp's first pitch of the fifth inning, for an opposite-field solo home run to right.

Turnabout is fair play. Last year when these teams met in April, Cary-Grove entered with only 1 loss but was beaten 5-1 by Huntley.

"This year it was just the opposite," said Waylock, who now has 4 home runs. "They're in the position we were in. We came out here fired up. We wanted to beat these guys because they only had 1 loss. We wanted to take them down."