Stout, Roback pitch St. Francis to sweep
St. Francis baseball coach Rich Janor slept a little easier Monday night knowing Eric Stout and Jack Roback would take the mound the next day.
Sure enough, the Spartans’ talented pitching tandem did their job in a pair of nonconference victories Tuesday in Wheaton. After Stout pitched a 10-0 five-inning win against Plano, Roback followed with 5 solid innings in a 10-4 win over Fenton.
“It was overall a good day for us,” Janor said. “That 1-2 pitching punch is something we’re really going to hang our hat on all year.”
While St. Francis (4-0) struggled little against Plano, Fenton (2-1) proved to be a tougher assignment — especially after the Bison took a 3-0 lead in the top of the second inning on back-to-back RBI singles by Augie Castellanos and Colin Wallace.
St. Francis, though, got 2 runs back in the bottom of the inning, and then scored 6 runs on 4 Fenton errors to seize control in the third inning.
Stout sparked the offense against Fenton by going 3-for-3 with a double and 3 RBI. With a lone first-inning error against the Bison, the Spartans showed the ideal combination of pitching, hitting and defense.
“We just wanted to build some momentum heading into the rest of this week,” said Stout, who is committed to Butler. “We’ve got three games (in Peoria) coming up, so we want to go into conference playing strong.”
St. Francis was opportunistic in the 6-run third inning against Fenton. Lonnie Hicks and Tom Ameche had the lone hits, but most of the damage was done through the 4 errors.
Fenton committed 6 errors in the game, including one in the second inning that led to the Spartans’ first run.
“We got off to the 3-run lead, and then we basically beat ourselves,” said Fenton coach Justin Moriarty. “It’s not to take anything away from them, but I know we’re more talented than what we showed out there.”
Roman Castellanos’ sacrifice fly narrowed Fenton’s gap to 8-4 in the fifth inning, but Roback’s RBI single in the bottom of the fifth boosted the Spartans’ lead to 9-4. Stout’s run-scoring double in the sixth made it 10-4.
Roback struck out six in 5 innings before being relieved by Ameche and Joel Birch, who escaped a sixth-inning jam with a pair of strikeouts.
Stout went 3-for-4 and drove in 2 runs against Plano. He improved to 2-0 by striking out 10, walking none and scattering 3 hits over 5 innings.
“We feel pretty confident out there,” Roback said. “We’ve got a great catcher (K.C. Zimmerman), a great pitching coach. We’re hitting the ball. We’re playing well right now.”