Lakes a hit in win over Vernon Hills
The scouting report on the Lakes baseball team for these early weeks of the season is that hitting is a weakness.
But on Wednesday, the Eagles made a case for some updating.
Lakes was a hitting machine in a 10-9 victory over visiting Vernon Hills that pushed its record to 6-7 overall and 1-1 in the North Suburban Conference Prairie Division.
The Eagles pounded out 12 hits, including 7 in the first inning alone, to make a huge statement in their first game since a team powwow the night before that hit hard on their struggles at the plate.
“It took a rough loss yesterday (3-1 at Vernon Hills) to do what we did today,” said Lakes third baseman Paul Kukulka, who went 2-for-2 and drove in one of 7 first-inning runs scored by the Eagles. “We wanted to win bad today.
“Yesterday, we couldn’t hit. We’ve had trouble with that all season. We got back to school yesterday and we got talked to by coach (Ray Gialo) about our hitting and everyone got mad that we lost because we weren’t able to hit the ball. That’s what it took for us to finally hit today. Everyone was mad and focused. We were all in the game. It was fun to watch.”
The first inning was particularly enjoyable for Lakes’ fans.
The Eagles batted around and wound up sending a total of 12 batters to the plate. Kyle Noon got 2 hits and drove in a run in the marathon inning while Nick Traska drove in 2 runs.
The offensive binge by Lakes came on the heels of a very impressive first inning by Vernon Hills, which opened by sending seven batters to the plate, ringing up 3 hits and scoring 2 runs on RBI singles by Chris Marras and Steven Nelson.
“We’ve been having such a tough time hitting this season that we felt we really needed to talk to the guys about that. So last night, we talked about doing a better job at the plate and having more focus and hitting better pitches,” Gialo said. “I think the guys seemed to really take that to heart today. They did a really nice job in the first inning.”
But the Eagles weren’t done there. They couldn’t be.
Vernon Hills, which drops to 11-3 (2-2 NSC Prairie) stayed hot and put up three more runs in the top of the second inning. That cut the Cougars’ deficit to 2 at 7-5.
But Lakes immediately matched Vernon Hills’ outbust with three more runs of its own to push the lead back up to 10-5 after two full innings.
“We didn’t start off the way we wanted to giving up 7 runs in the first inning, no doubt about that,” said Vernon Hills first baseman Brian Palmer. “It’s hard to overcome something like that.
“But we stayed with it. Coach (Jay Czarnecki) kept us positive. It was ‘Chip away, chip away.’ Luckily, we were able to stay in it.”
Vernon Hills did more than that.
The Cougars kept getting closer and closer to overtaking Lakes.
In the third inning, Vernon Hills added 2 runs on a big single by lead-off hitter Chris Argianas.
Then, runs in both the fifth and sixth innings cut the deficit to just 1 run at 10-9. And in the seventh inning, the Cougars got the tying run on first when Tyler Feece drew a 1-out walk.
“We had confidence to come back,” Vernon Hills coach Jay Czarnecki said. “Our kids kept a positive attitude and everyone in our dugout believed we were going to win.”
But Lakes reliever Jake Brown got two straight outs after the Feece walk, including a strikeout for the final out, to ice the victory.
“It’s good to be in those kind of pressure situations,” Gialo said. “I thought we responded when we had to.”