Palmer hurls South Elgin past Hampshire
South Elgin pitcher David Palmer wasn’t his reliable self last week in a season-opening loss to Fremd, but the junior was back in form Wednesday in the Storm’s 8-2 nonconference win at Hampshire.
In his first outing on March 20, Palmer allowed 8 earned runs on 8 hits and 3 walks in 22⁄3 innings. The Storm lost that game 9-1. It was a rough start for a pitcher who went 5-1 on the varsity as a sophomore with 44 strikeouts, 14 walks and a 3.30 ERA in 46 innings.
“He had trouble finding the strike zone, and that’s not Dave’s game,” South Elgin coach Jim Kating said of Palmer’s first start. “When Dave’s around the plate and changing pitches and locations, he’s a tough customer to hit against.”
Against Hampshire (2-2-1), the right-hander was able to locate his big, sweeping curveball for strikes, and he kept the ball down in the strike zone with a strong wind blowing out to right field. Palmer worked 6-plus inning, allowing 2 runs (1 earned) on 7 hits. He walked a man and struck out 3 to help South Elgin (2-1) win its second straight.
“Last week I didn’t have it working too good,” Palmer said of his curveball. “I worked on a few things last weekend and I got it down a little better.”
Facing a good curveball pitcher wasn’t good news for Hampshire, which dropped its second straight game to an Upstate Eight Conference team.
“We saw a guy that was able to get that breaking ball over and keep us off balance; we struggle with that,” Hampshire coach John Sarna said. “We’re a fastball-hitting team. You get somebody up there like (Palmer), it’s going to be a long day. We scratched across 2 runs. We thought that could have been a 2-1 ballgame, but it ended up being 8-2.”
The South Elgin offense spotted Palmer a 2-0 lead in the first inning and kept on producing. The Storm generated 8 runs on 15 hits and 5 walks, including 5 earned runs on 13 hits and 4 walks against Hampshire starting pitcher Jacob Kuhn (0-1). He lasted 6 innings.
“He was belt high,” Hampshire coach John Sarna said of Kuhn’s pitches. “He’s got to get that ball down around the knees to be successful. Unfortunately, it wasn’t there. We weren’t getting that first pitch over for strikes and we were walking too many guys. That’s the bottom line.
“And then we weren’t focused mentally defensively. We had a mental issue, a breakdown on the first bunt.”
South Elgin’s Ryan Hicks (1-1, 3 walks) and Michael Murphy (3-for-4) each singled to start the first inning, and Andrew Weedman reached first base on a sacrifice bunt when the Whip-Purs failed to cover first base. The Storm took advantage with RBI fielder’s choice groundballs off the bats of Jake Buhman and Palmer.
“Should have had an out there at first and we ended up having the bases loaded with nobody out,” Sarna added. “It’s hard to compete when you’re in those situations.”
Nevan Jeske gave South Elgin a 3-0 lead in the second inning. The junior led off with a walk, advanced on a balk and a sacrifice fly by Mitchell Bland and scored from third on a two-out wild pitch.
South Elgin senior Andrew Weedman extended the lead to 4-0 by opening the third inning with an opposite-field home run, helped by the jet stream blowing out to right field.
“I got a little mad because I thought I got under it too much,” said Weedman, who hit 3 home runs last year. “Then I looked and saw it get up there in the wind and it just took off.” Weedman went 3-for-4 with a home run, double and 2 RBI.
The Storm scored a two-out run in the fourth and added 3 more runs after two were away in the sixth, a rally keyed by Buhman’s RBI triple, to take an 8-0 lead.
Hampshire scored its first run against Palmer in the sixth when Michael Laramie tripled and scored on Tyler Crater’s one-out groundball. Justin Thinger reached on an error to open the seventh and scored on Michael Dumoulin’s double. That signaled the end for Palmer after approximately 75 pitches.
Reliever Eric Stazy closed the door by getting three outs in order, including 2 strikeouts.