St. Charles East shines under pressure, downs Glenbard North
The St. Charles East baseball team knew a nail-biter had to be coming soon.
At least 7 runs decided each of the Saints' first five ballgames, but they finally went down to the wire on Thursday in a nonconference game against Glenbard North in St. Charles.
Behind a complete game effort from senior southpaw Tommy Konrad, the Saints held on for a 2-1 victory over the Panthers.
"Our games have been high scoring and there have been some blowouts so it was good to be put in this kind of situation and feel the pressure," Konrad said. "Now we know that we can keep a lead and hold on and get a win."
Konrad started and finished strong. He set down the first 10 batters he faced before shortstop Ryan Sabalaskey hit a Texas leaguer with one out in the top of the fourth inning.
"He was a very good pitcher," Glenbard North coach Rich Smelko said. "Probably one of the better ones we've seen so far this year."
St. Charles East (5-1), which scored 49 runs in its first four games before being shut out 9-0 by Fremd on Wednesday, found itself in a funk until the bottom of the third inning.
Luke Rojas and Ryan Shaffrey reached base on a hit by pitch and an error respectively to put runners on the corners with one away. Leadoff man T.J. Travis then dropped down a delayed squeeze bunt back to pitcher Andrew Bergmann who retired Travis at first, but first baseman Chris Caliva's throw to catcher Brandon Clark wasn't in time to nab Rojas.
"We're going to be aggressive and try to put pressure on the defense," St. Charles East coach Dave Haskins said. "Especially on days like today when it's tough to hit."
Ryan Sotern followed with an RBI single to right field to plate Shaffrey and put the Saints ahead 2-0.
Glenbard North (4-1) finally got to Konrad in the bottom of the fifth inning as the bottom of its order came to life.
Batting seventh for the Panthers, Jake Kline hammered a double down the right field line with one out and then trotted in to score on Rick Janokowicz's triple to right.
"We started going away there," Smelko said. "With the wind blowing in our face we've got to hit the ball up the middle and to the right side there."
Having already witnessed the Saints perfect the bunt to bring home a run, the Panthers put on the suicide squeeze with No. 9 hitter Mark Ng at the plate. Ng wasn't able to get the bunt down and Janokowicz was a dead duck to retire the side.
"I thought we had a 2-1 count, a good time to do the squeeze," Smelko said. "Unfortunately for us we didn't get it down. You know, we get it down, the game's tied."
The Saints weren't able to manufacture any more runs to give Konrad a cushion, and he certainly would've liked that after surrendering a single to Caliva and plunking Clark to open the top of the seventh inning. The big defensive play followed when Konrad was able to nip the lead runner on a bang-bang play at third base on Kline's sacrifice attempt. That seemingly turned the momentum around and Konrad got an easy fly out before fanning pinch-hitter Anthony Keener to end the ballgame.
"A day like today you can't get hurt with flyballs too much so I was letting them hit it," Konrad said. "I would say 75 percent of my pitches were fastballs and I felt good even in the later innings."
Konrad walked only one and struck out seven.
Bergmann was the tough-luck loser. He only yielded a pair of singles and fanned seven. He didn't walk a batter.
"Bergmann threw a great game for us," Smelko said. "He threw strikes, let them put the ball in play, but we didn't help him out defensively."
The Saints certainly helped Konrad defensively. Not only did the Saints play errorless baseball but second baseman Jonathan Erickson and Sotern at shortstop both made highlight-worthy plays.
"We preach good pitching, solid defense and timely hitting," Haskins said. "If we do that we should be all right."