Conlon batters familiar foe, sends Naperville Central to victory

Some say familiarity breeds success, and that was just the case Thursday afternoon in Naperville.

St. Rita transfer Shane Conlon was very familiar with ex-conference foe Providence and it showed in the Redhawks' 5-1 nonconference victory over Providence Catholic.

Conlon laced a 2-run single up the middle in the third inning, which proved to be the game-winning RBI. He also walked and scored a run en route to the victory.

"I knew coming in they were going to give us a battle," Conlon said. "The 0-0 pitch was a changeup and I was out ahead of it. I knew I had to stay on the ball. Then he threw a fastball away and I just hit it back up the middle."

The Redhawks (7-0) were aided by some control issues from Providence starter Matt Trowbridge, who walked the first two batters in the third inning, setting up Conlon's 2-run single. Providence pitchers combined to walk seven and hit one in six innings, opening the gates for multiple Redhawks rallies.

"I think the weather got to him a little bit. In the third inning he kind of opened the door up," Naperville Central coach Bill Seiple said. "All of a sudden we're looking at second and third with Shane up, and that's a good plan for us."

Helping Conlon in the offensive attack was right fielder Bobby Czarnowski, who has been stinging the ball through seven games. Czarnowski was 2-for-3 with 2 RBI and a run scored.

The game got off to a bit of a rough start for Naperville Central when the Celtics scored a run in the first inning off a single and two Redhawks errors. However, that was the only hit that starter Marc Mantucca yield in five strong innings. Mantucca fanned four while only walking one, keeping the Celtics' bats cold on a blustery afternoon in Naperville.

"I had command of the two pitches," Mantucca said. The changeup I need to work on a little bit, but it was a cold day. I thought I threw, overall, pretty well."

Seiple was very pleased with the pace of his pitchers as well, as Mantucca and reliever Tim Roetter kept the Providence hitters off-balance all afternoon.

"Our pitchers had good rhythm and gave us a chance to make plays," Seiple said. "This was a good win for us because it's a quality team coming in here on a tough day. The best thing about this is, we've had a plan going in, in terms of using guys and keeping pitch counts down, and while we're doing that, we're still competing."

Seiple knows it's a long season and sticking to the plan will help the Redhawks get to where they want to be. This was echoed by Czarnowski as the Redhawks move forward.

"We've got to take it one game at a time," Czarnowski said. "We're going to see some good pitching pretty much every game since we have a target on our back. All we can do is take it one game at a time."