Buffalo Grove breaks Rolling Meadows

Buffalo Grove senior Andrew Van Wazer and Rolling Meadows junior Matt Hendricks were locked up in a tense pitcher’s duel through four innings of their Mid-Suburban East baseball opener on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon.

But a mix of walks, errors and timely hits was the perfect combination for visiting BG to break through for an 11-3 victory.

“All of our guys were really enthusiastic,” said Van Wazer, who went the distance to allow only 1 earned run and was 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI. “We have to be able to close games better but we played really sound for most of the game. It was good to get our intensity back up after last week.”

The Bison (6-6, 1-0) had lost four in a row so senior captains Van Wazer, Ryan Nisbet, Tommy Ricciardi, Cody Iverson and Trevor Myers held a meeting with the rest of the team about playing with better effort and execution. They also beat Maine South 8-1 on Monday.

“This is where we should be,” said Ricciardi, who was 2-for-3 with a two-out, 2-run double in the fifth to make it 4-0 and a sacrifice fly. “Just getting to conference play, everyone started to focus in and all of the effort and attitude was there.”

Especially since Hendricks had allowed only an unearned run and 2 hits with no walks in 4 innings. But 3 straight walks set up Nisbet’s sacrifice fly and Van Wazer’s walk kept the inning going.

Jake Monson (2-for-4) had a 2-run single after Ricciardi’s big hit and a single by Jake Fanella (2-for-4) and 2 of 6 errors by Meadows (5-3, 0-1) capped BG’s 6-run outburst.

Van Wazer had an RBI double, Monson an RBI triple and Fanella an RBI single in the sixth.

“We’ve been struggling to string a couple of hits together and obviously with two outs that amplifies how big it is,” said BG coach Jeff Grybash. “Especially against a guy like Hendricks who is a quality pitcher.”

The University of Chicago-bound Van Wazer used a mix of arm angles and pitches to scatter 6 hits and throw 63 of his 99 pitches for strikes. He had 5 strikeouts and 3 walks and lost his shutout bid on Hendricks’ RBI single in the sixth.

“I felt good right when I came out of school and had good defense throughout most of the game,” Van Wazer said.

“Fortunately it’s only one (MSL) game and there’s a long way to go,” said Meadows coach Jim Lindeman. “BG is going to beat a lot more people than just us. But no way did I think we’d lose like that.”