Antioch's fifth straight win falls right into place

There were three gloves ready to catch one pop-up.

You'd think those were pretty good odds for the Wauconda baseball team.

But oddly enough, they weren't.

Three Bulldogs converged near the pitcher's mound when Antioch first baseman Andy Green sent a ball high into the dark, gray, cloud-filled sky Wednesday afternoon in the fourth inning.

The Bulldogs scrambled around, repositioned themselves several times as the ball did tricks in the wind and seemed to have Green's pop-up cornered. But when it finally came back down to earth, well, it hit earth.

None of the three Bulldogs caught it.

Green managed to get to first base safely and, amid the chaos, two Antioch baserunners - Al Arden and Kevin Smiley - scored.

That gave the host Sequoits their first lead of the day, and foreshadowed the rest of the game.

Wauconda committed three more costly errors and Antioch took advantage en route to an 8-5 North Suburban Conference Prairie Division win. The Sequoits scored on all but one of Wauconda's errors.

Antioch, which has now won five games in a row, improves to 13-13 on the season and 5-4 in the Prairie. Wauconda drops to 15-13 overall (5-4 Prairie).

"I was thinking that ball was going to be caught - but I was really hoping for it not to," said Arden, who was on third at the time of the high pop-up. "I didn't think our other runner would score. But we've been really capitalizing on everything lately.

"If we score on errors, we score on errors. We'll take it any way we can get it."

Arden not only scored on an error, he also reached first on an error in the sixth inning. And that scored a run as well.

The Sequoits scored on two Wauconda errors in the sixth inning to put the game away. Up 4-3 heading into the inning, they gave themselves a huge cushion by scoring a total of four runs on only 2 hits.

"We're getting better at putting the ball in play and putting pressure on the defense," said Antioch coach Paul Petty, whose team managed a win despite getting out-hit 10-5 and having none of those hits go for more than a single. "This builds some confidence for us, winning five games in a row.

"And we've been winning in different ways, whether it be with bombs, doubles or someone else's mistakes."

Make no mistake that a big part of the Sequoits' win can be credited to pitcher Bob Pranke. He went the distance, recorded 5 strikeouts and also got himself out of some jams, including a stressful one in the seventh inning.

Wauconda staged a bit of a late rally when three of its first four batters in the seventh got on with singles. The Bulldogs wound up scoring 2 runs on RBI by Jeff Jackson and Kevin Fessler to cut its 5-run deficit (8-3) down to three.

But Pranke closed the door, and the game, with two straight outs before any more damage could be done.

"Bob kept battling and he got through some tough spots," Petty said. "We also played some pretty good defense for him."

While Wauconda was rolling up the errors, the Sequoits didn't commit any. But they did have to stomach the hitting of Jackson.

Jackson kept the Bulldogs in the game by going a sparkling 4-for-4 on the day, with 2 doubles and a home run over the left-field fence. He says it is the first time this season that he's gone 4-for-4 in a single game.

"I got some pitches to hit finally and I wasn't going to miss them," Jackson said. "I was just trying my best to help the team out.

"We just have to forget about this day, though, and stay positive. We're usually a very solid defense, we usually make the easy plays. But one thing after another kept happening today and we got down and frustrated. We just have to pick each other up now."