Lake Zurich makes the best vs. Clemente
Lake Zurich baseball coach gave Gary Simon gave a sigh of relief after his team outslugged visiting Clemente 14-11 in a nonconference game on Saturday.
"I'm dead tired from dragging diamond dry all day, getting the field back and ready, said Simon, whose Bears won in 5 innings in between two rain delays. "It was a sloppy game as both teams were kicking the ball around."
In the top of the fourth and down 7-6, Clemente (5-3) scored 4 runs as Gabriel Irrizarry slammed a 3-run homer to highight the inning to take a 10-7 lead. But in the bottom of the inning, Lake Zurich clawed back with 4 runs to take an 11-10 lead.
In the top of the fifth inning, Clemente (13-6) had two men out, but it started to storm and the game was delayed an hour.
When the game resumed play, Clemente's Jonathan Santiago hit a bloop between second base and right field and the ball fell to tie the score at 11-11.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Bears scored 3 runs as Chas Evans had an RBI and Tanner Witt (3-4) had a 2-run double which proved to be the winning runs.
In the top of the sixth, the rain began again and and after another 30-minute delay and another bolt of lightning, the umpires called the game.
Simon admitted the toughest part of the game was keeping his team motivated after the long delay.
"You always worry about that," Simon said. "When Tyler went out there after sitting around and eating and then try and go out to pitch was tough and he had the ball up and that brought him some trouble and then we brought in Parker, whose been pitching in relief for us all season.
Both teams had problems on defense as Lake Zurich had 7 errors and Clemente had 6.
Lake Zurich had a good day on the basepaths, stealing 5 bases.
Clemente (5-3) opened things up in the first inning, as Adrian Perez crushed a solo homer over the right-field fence. Two innings later, the Wildcats sent nine batters to the plate and scored 5 runs on 3 hits to build a 6-0 lead.
In the bottom of the third, Lake Zurich took the lead by sending 11 batters to the plate, scoring 7 runs on 7 hits.
Bears starting pitcher Austin Cox started the inning with a solo homer to left.
"That was the wind, pretty much," Cox said. "I had given up a home run in the first inning, and I took out my aggression with my bat."
Later in the inning, Tanner Witt hit a 2-run double, while Logan Matthews, Tyler Schmitz, Mike Miller each had RBI singles and Parker Asmann ended the scoring with a sacrifice fly.
Cox pitched the first four innings and was relieved by Tyler Schmitz,. who recorded the victory.
Parker Asmann came in the fifth to pick up his fourth save of the season.
Irizarry pitched the first five innings of the game for Clemente and took the loss.
"He's a gutsy player and sometimes you have to reel him in and keep him calm," Clemente coach Chris Hall said."He gets a little keyed up, but he is a gutsy player for staying out there for us today."