Lakes thinks 'dink' and wins

"Dink you very much."

That's what the players on the Lakes baseball team could have said to their counterparts from Vernon Hills on Wednesday afternoon as they passed by each other in the handshake line after their game.

The host Eagles got a 1-0, 11th-hour victory in the kookiest of ways, on what Lakes coach Bill Rosencrans described as a "dink."

With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, Lakes left fielder Ryan Noon broke up a scoreless tie when he ripped a shot at Vernon Hills reliever Cesar Gallegos.

The ball was just out of Gallegos' reach and when he lunged for it, it grazed his glove and bounced away. That gave Noon enough time to reach first base safely while pinch runner Josh Rigalli, who had been hoping not to be stranded at third base, scurried home to put the only run of the day on the board.

"(The pitch) was kind of outside a bit and I got just a little bit of my bat on it," Noon said. "It snuck through. It tipped off his glove. As soon as I hit it, I just put my head down and ran.

"Sometimes you've just got to have the luck on your side."

The lucky Eagles improve to 8-5 on the season with the victory. Vernon Hills, which had beaten Lakes just 24 hours earlier in extra innings, drops to 6-9.

Neither team, however, was feeling very lucky prior to the seventh inning. Especially in the hitting department.

That's because both starting pitchers couldn't have been any stingier.

Lakes junior Nick Hibbing and Vernon Hills freshman Tyler Feece each gave up only 4 hits apiece, and before Rigalli advanced to third, only two batters over the course of the entire game made it past first base.

Chris Marras and Scott Kempel of Vernon Hills each had a double. That was it.

"Both pitchers were excellent," Vernon Hills coach Jay Czarnecki said. "It was a really well-played game for both teams defensively, too. Offensively it wasn't a very well-played game, but that was because of the pitchers."

Hibbing, who has already committed to Iowa, rolled up 11 strikeouts in pushing his record on the mound to 3-0.

"My fastball was working early," Hibbing said. "It was really a stalemate all game. Both pitchers were doing a good job. But eventually Ryan Noon came up big for us."

Feece, whose only earned run in three varsity starts is the one scored by Rigalli, drops to 1-2 on the season. He struck out five Lakes batters.

"My cutter was working and locating my pitches was helping," said Feece, who left the game after he gave up a lead-off walk in the seventh to Travis Vanderwall, who was replaced at first by Rigalli. "It's pretty exciting for me (to be pitching on varsity as a freshman).

"We were just hoping that we could get a win here because this is a big division rivalry for us."