Westminster dumps St. Edward

It’s almost funny what qualifies as an “off night” when greatness has become the expectation.

Westminster Christian junior pitcher Ryan Perez entered Friday’s nonconference game against St. Edward at Elgin’s Trout Park with a 10-inning hitless streak.

After he gave up an earned run on 2 hits, walked 4, hit a batter, and struck out 12 in 5 innings of a 5-1 victory, both Perez and his head coach spoke of the performance as if it had been subpar.

“Sometimes I don’t have my stuff, sometimes I do,” said the affable Perez. “It happens to every pitcher.”

It just usually doesn’t happen often to Perez (4-1), a returning Class 1A state champion with an ERA of 1.27 and 81 strikeouts and 15 walks in 38 innings.

“When you see him pitch and he sets a standard with a routine and then he comes out and pitches like (Friday), you look at it like he didn’t pitch good,” Westminster Christian coach Jeff Moeller said. “It’s not that he’s not effective, but what we’re used to seeing he didn’t have.”

The ambidextrous pitcher had set the bar extremely high due to his previous two outings. He threw a 5-inning perfect game against Luther North on Monday, and he combined with equally scary Warriors hurler Kevin Elder for a no-hitter against St. Francis last Saturday.

Perez saw his no-hit streak end two batters into the bottom of the first inning when St. Edward senior Ryan DiCristofano rolled a clean single up the middle.

Tighe Koerhing followed with a bunt single up the third-base line. It was the first time Perez had given up consecutive hits in a game since Westminster’s downstate trip to open the season.

Then Perez, who alternated between his right and left hands through the first four batters, walked junior Luke Duffy right-handed to load the bases. That prompted a visit from pitching coach Aaron Perez, Ryan’s father.

“He said, ‘Let’s go. Get your head together and start throwing strikes,’” Ryan Perez said. “I was all over the place.”

After giving up an earned run on Derek Porto’s RBI groundout, which tied the game 1-1, Perez stuck with his left hand for the remainder of the outing because “I felt I had better command.”

However, St. Edward junior left-hander Austin Davis was equally effective early on. He held the Warriors to 1 hit through the first four innings until Perez broke through with his bat in the fifth inning by smacking a 2-run double off the left-field fence to score 2 unearned runs.

Perez also victimized Davis in the seventh inning for a 2-run home run to left field to cap the scoring, but Davis’ final line was more than respectable: 7 innings, 2 earned runs, 7 hits, 8 strikeouts and 2 walks.

“I feel like I’ve been hard to hit,” Davis said. “I felt I hit the corners real well and it helped. I felt good about it.”

“He’s been doing that pretty much the second half of the season,” St. Edward coach Gene Belmonte said. “He’s only a junior, not a lot of experience but he was throwing strikes on all three of his pitches and hitting his spots. He kept a good-hitting team off-balance all night long for the most part. ”

Junior Kevin Elder closed out the contest by striking out 5 hitters in 2 perfect innings of relief. The right-hander viewed the matchup as a potential playoff preview. The Elgin private schools could meet for the title of the Class 2A regional title next month if each advances past its semifinal.

“We wanted to come out and see what they had to be prepared for the playoffs because we know we’re going to get them at some point,” said Elder, who has 75 strikeouts in 35 innings. “We wanted to send the message that we’re still a tough team and we’re going to go after everybody we play.”