Naperville Central sees some growth
Naperville Central’s growing pains felt much better on Wednesday.
The Redhawks’ baseball team, a day after losing handily to Oswego, bounced back with a solid 6-4 win over Waubonsie Valley in Aurora.
Behind the pitching and hitting of junior Ian Lewandowski — one of the many youngsters looking to step up — Naperville Central (2-1) kept the Warriors (0-2) at bay until a seventh-inning rally made it interesting.
The defending Class 4A state champions still have plenty of work to do with a vastly different lineup from a year ago, but Wednesday’s effort showed a slice of the group’s potential.
“Right now we’re just trying to get better,” said Lewandowski, who won on the mound and drove in 2 runs at the plate. “It doesn’t matter what the result is right now, we just need to get better and see who can play.
“It’s very big,” he said of Wednesday’s win. “It shows we can come back after a day like yesterday where we couldn’t hit the ball, we couldn’t defend, we couldn’t really do anything.”
Run-scoring hits by Conor Philbin and Lewandowski helped Naperville Central jump on the Warriors with 2 runs in both the first and second innings. The Redhawks rode Lewandowski’s pitching for 4 strong innings as he allowed 1 hit and walked none. The lone fourth-inning run he allowed was unearned.
Only 2 runs were earned against Waubonsie Valley pitchers Mike Murphy, who went 5 innings, and Chris Anderson. Four errors proved costly for the Warriors, especially the two that opened the door for the 4 runs in the first two innings.
“We really have to be confident in our abilities when we get down early,” said Warriors coach Dan Fezzuoglio. “We need to be better than how we’ve sort of come out the last couple of days. We make four or five errors, that doesn’t help either. From a mental standpoint we’ve got to be better.”
Waubonsie Valley struck for 3 unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI double by Eric Josupait and Murphy’s 2-run single. Cody Willis, however, closed his third inning of relief for the Redhawks by coaxing a groundout to end the game.
Because of 8 combined errors in the game, only 2 of the 10 total runs were earned.
“We’re going to get better, we’re trying to figure it out,” said Redhawks coach Bill Seiple. “You see flashes of this is going to be a good team.”