De Rosa, Glenbard South coast past Fenton

Glenbard South starting pitcher Ryan De Rosa knew he would only throw four innings in his team's season opener against Fenton on Friday afternoon.

So after Raiders coach Mike Riley pulled De Rosa after the prescribed four innings despite the fact De Rosa found himself in the midst of a perfect game, the Glenbard South ace harbored no hard feelings.

"It's fine," a smiling De Rosa said after his team's 10-0, five-inning victory over Fenton in Glen Ellyn. "It was going to be four innings no matter what."

De Rosa's final three innings on the mound proved all but stress-free, as the Raiders offense knocked in 8 runs in the bottom of the first inning, all coming with two outs. Designated hitter Andrew Bettin knocked in the first two Raiders runs of the year on a single to right field, beginning a four-batter streak of RBI to push the home team's advantage to 6-0.

From then on out, all De Rosa had to do was find the plate.

"You've just to come out and throw strikes after that," De Rosa said of the early eight-run lead. "That was great. No pressure."

De Rosa's success failed to surprise Riley, despite facing another school's lineup for the first time this year.

"We knew he'd be our No. 1. He was our No. 3 last year and did a real nice job," Riley said. "He's a smart pitcher. We have five basic rules for our pitchers, and he understands that and works hard to be good at all five."

Consecutive doubles from Bettin and Billy Strohl to begin the bottom of the second pushed Glenbard South's (1-0) lead to 9-0. Mike Meath's sacrifice fly to left field in the third inning allowed the Raiders to finish the game in five.

"We had taken a little live pitching off our own guys, but we just went out there and did our thing," Bettin said. "We were just seeing it and hitting it when we saw it."

Conversely, the Bison (0-1) showed clear signs their bats weren't quite game-ready.

"You can tell their bats were kind of slow," Fenton assistant coach Jason Madl said. "Not only were our bats slow on the fastball, we weren't adjusting to the off-speed stuff very well either."

"We try to focus on doing the right things and doing what we're supposed to do. Today, we didn't do what we were supposed to do, which is put the ball in play."