Mundelein mashes Lake Zurich

Same story, different day.

There was a bit of déjà vu in the air as the Lake Zurich baseball team visited Mundelein on Wednesday.

The Mustangs’ monster 11-0 victory over Lake Zurich looked very familiar. The day before in Lake Zurich, Mundelein rolled to a decisive 9-1 win over the Bears.

The latest victory moves the Mustangs to 10-0 overall, and 2-0 in the North Suburban Lake Division, where they have convinced some people that they are the early favorite.

“These guys are tough,” longtime Lake Zurich coach Gary Simon said. “This is the best Mundelein team I’ve seen in 11 years.

“They are solid. Stevenson, Warren, everybody in our division is going to have their hands full with these guys because there aren’t any soft spots in their entire game. They’ve got solid hitting and very good pitching and their position players are really good.”

The Mustangs’ solid hitting hit Lake Zurich (2-6, 0-2 NSC Lake) like a ton of bricks, right out of the gate.

Mundelein put 6 runs on the board in the first inning, thanks in large part to a home run by Chris Maranto in the Mustangs’ second at-bat and an RBI double by Chris Langley. Two errors in the inning also did Lake Zurich no favors.

“We know Lake Zurich is a good team and we just wanted to start quick,” said Maranto, who cranked his second home run of the season. “Starting off with a home run really got our team going.

“I’m not really a big home run hitter, but the ball kind of carried so that was good. So far this season, we’ve been getting a lot of big hits out of a lot of different people.”

Mundelein rolled up 14 hits against Lake Zurich in Wednesday’s second and final game of the season series. Every starter in the Mundelein lineup had at least 1 hit.

On Tuesday in Lake Zurich, the Mustangs were almost as potent. They finished with 13 hits.

Mundelein coach Todd Parola said he’d been thinking it might take his team’s hitting a while to come around. It’s taking less time for that to happen than he thought.

“We still have to get better offensively and work on our consistency,” said Parola. “But I’m real encouraged. We’ve started off pretty well because we’ve been able to hit some open spots.”

Meanwhile, Mundelein pitcher Dante Martinez sure was hitting his spots.

The lefty looked sharp in going the distance, allowing just 2 hits and 1 walk while registering 8 strikeouts.

“It makes you so much more relaxed to just go out there and throw strikes when you have a big early lead like we had,” said Martinez, who moves to 3-0 on the season. “My curveball was definitely on today. It felt like I could throw it for a strike any time I wanted. I’d set them up with my curveball and then throw a fastball and blow right by them.”

Only Parker Asmann and Sean Eder were able to crack Martinez. They had back-to-back singles in the third inning but were left stranded.

Asmann, who also started on the mound for Lake Zurich, took the loss.

“Parker pitched fine, we just gave them extra outs (due to the errors) in that first inning,” Simon said. “The other thing that’s disappointing is that this is the first time we’ve gotten shut out.

“We just need to work on our hitting and putting the ball in play. We’ll be good to go soon. We’ll surprise some people.”