Frawley's blast sinks St. Charles East
Sometimes the simple approach works best.
Matt Frawley's clutch 2-out, 3-run home run in the top of the seventh inning helped propel Glenbard North (3-3) to a 9-8 nonconference baseball triumph over St. Charles East (2-2) Thursday in St. Charles.
“If you can make contact and put the ball in play, something good will happen,” said Frawley, who launched reliever Matt Starai's pitch over the 345-foot sign in left-center to snap a 6-6 deadlock. “In a big situation, you can't think about it and you can't be nervous. You've just got to go up and do it.”
Frawley's last home run came as a member of the Panthers' freshman team 2 years ago.
“It has been a while but I had a good feeling as soon as it came off the bat,” said Frawley. “It felt good to come up to the plate and put the team on your shoulders.”
Bryan Polowy, Frawley, and Ryan Storto — the Panthers' 7-8-9 batters — drove in 6 of the team's 9 runs and reached base 6 times.
“The bottom of our order did a nice job today,” said Panthers coach Rich Smelko. “We had a big 2-out, 2-run single by Storto earlier in the game to get us off to the 3-0 lead.”
After the Saints pushed across a run in the bottom of the fourth on Jack Dellostritto's RBI single, Glenbard North scored 3 more times in the fifth to up the lead to 6-1.
Designated hitter Jeff Lapage delivered the key hit, an opposite-field double to right center that brought home Brandon Kressner and Ryan Gallagher, who had opened the inning with back-to-back singles.
That's when the Saints began their comeback.
An outfield error led to the Saints' first run in the fifth, and Jordan Hayes' RBI single a few moments later helped cut the deficit to 6-3.
In the sixth, junior first baseman Tommy Wilson led off by belting a solo home run over the fence in left-center to make it 6-4.
Dellostritto reached on an error and Nick Huskisson's infield hit put runners at first and second before Troy DeFilippis' RBI single chased Panthers starting pitcher Matt Albin and trimmed the deficit to 6-5.
After pinch-hitter Johnny Hondlik coaxed a walk from reliever Ryan Tintera (1-0) to load the bases, Nicholas Erickson's sacrifice fly sent Huskisson home with the game-tying run.
Trailing 9-6, the Saints mounted another rally, as Joe Hoscheit led off the seventh with a double and scored on Wilson's RBI single.
Brian Sobieski, who had walked, scored from second on an errant pickoff throw at first to make it 9-8, and allowed courtesy runner Sean Dunne to advance to third.
But reliever Brett Consitt fanned the next 2 batters to preserve the victory for the Panthers.
“Brett's a little guy (5-8) but he's a big guy at heart,” said Smelko. “With the way we were playing defense, we needed to get as many strikeouts as possible to take it out of our fielders' hands.”
The teams combined for 10 errors — 5 apiece.
“It was ugly all the way around that way,” said Saints coach Len Asquini. “We got back in the game and had a chance in the end. Those are all great attributes for us but we came up a little bit short and it all ended up happening right there on the defensive end.
“The unfortunate thing with something like this is some real big and important at-bats kind of get lost and you forget to identify them,” added Asquini. “We had some kids come through and do some great things at the plate.”