Hirsch closes door on St. Charles East

One look was all that St. Charles North baseball coach Todd Genke needed to make up his mind.

With the bases loaded and his team hanging on to the slimmest of leads in the top of the seventh inning, Genke decided to let senior pitcher Zach Hirsch finish what he started Thursday night.

The ace left-hander did just that, reaching back to record his seventh strikeout of the game as the North Stars (10-9, 6-6) held off a furious rally for a 6-5 Upstate Eight Conference victory over cross-town foe St. Charles East (8-11, 6-6) at Elfstrom Stadium.

"I looked at him and he gave me the look," Genke said. "The look is, 'I'm not coming out, Coach.' That was his last hitter though."

The Nebraska-bound Hirsch (4-1) took a 6-3 lead into the seventh before the Saints staged a late comeback, making it 6-5 on Johnathan Erickson's 2-out, 2-run single.

After T.J. Travis walked to load the bases, Hirsch's game-ending strikeout came on his 132nd pitch of the night - 33rd of the inning.

"I was very happy coach Genke left me in," said Hirsch. "I wanted to finish the game and I think he knew I wanted to finish the game. Luckily, I was able to get that last strikeout. I tried to give the team as much as I could. My arm was actually feeling pretty good. It's a little sore now but I think the adrenaline was pumping a little bit."

In the process, the North Stars snapped a season-long 6-game losing streak.

"I think we all knew we had to break out of it," said Hirsch.

After managing just 2 hits off Saints southpaw Kyle Wiebe in an 8-0 loss Tuesday, the North Stars staked Hirsch to a 3-0 first-inning lead Thursday.

Junior Ryan Richardson, who went 3-for-3 with 4 RBI and reached base all 4 times, delivered the big blow with a 2-run double off junior starting pitcher Tommy Konrad (1-2), who fanned 6 and gave up 8 hits in 5 innings.

St. Charles East capitalized on 3 North Stars infield errors to plate a pair of unearned runs in the second, narrowing the deficit to 3-2.

But St. Charles North answered with a run of its own in the bottom half of the frame on Richardson's RBI infield single and made it 5-3 on Jordan Huxtable's fourth-inning solo home run that sailed over the wall in near-straightaway center.

"It was surprising," Huxtable said of his first home run of the season. "I thought it hit off the wall until I got to third and Coach (Genke) told me it was a home run."

"You don't see a high school kid hit a ball that far very often," said Genke.

The North Stars added what proved to be an important add-on run in the sixth when KC Wright raced home from second on another infield single off the bat of Richardson.

"That was a big-league slide by KC Wright to help get us the sixth run," said Genke, whose team survived a scary seventh that included a double by the Saints' Robert Wendt, Konrad's infield single and a pair of walks.

"We made just enough plays to get us over the hump," said Genke. "A win solves a lot of problems."

Despite his team battling the North Stars' ace to the limit, Saints coach Mark Foulkes didn't want to hear about any close-but-not-quite questions.

"We lost," said the coach. "We'll come back and try to get the third game (May 15). The only moral victory is that it's (the 3-game series) 1-1. We've got them at our place and we've got to be ready to go."

"We know we've got to come out with a lot more intensity than we came out with today."