Geneva’s Honiotes fires 1-hitter
Geneva baseball coach Matt Hahn was in a pretty good mood more than an hour before his team’s arrival Tuesday afternoon in Batavia.
He left even happier.
Junior pitcher Andy Honiotes (6-0) turned in a scintillating performance, firing a 1-hit complete game while lifting the Vikings (19-6, 12-6) to a 4-2 victory over the host Bulldogs (12-13, 10-10).
Relying on an overpowering fastball and a hard-biting slider, the right-hander struck out 12 with 1 walk and a hit batsman during a 105-pitch outing, as the Vikings earned the rubber match of their 3-game series with the Bulldogs.
“It’s hard to put into words,” said Hahn, whose team remains 3 games in the loss column behind Upstate Eight Conference River Division-leading St. Charles East heading into Thursday’s opener of a 3-game series with the Saints. “It’s nice knowing that you’ve got that guy (Honiotes) to fall back on.
“But all of our pitchers have kind of been that way,” added Hahn. “Andy is going to be a special pitcher and it’s nice knowing that he’s only a junior.”
Earlier in the day, Hahn found out that the Vikings had received the top seed in the upcoming Class 4A Schaumburg sectional tournament complex (St. Charles North and St. Charles East are seeded second and third, respectively).
“I was smiling getting on the bus today,” said Hahn.
Honiotes made sure the smile never left Hahn’s face.
After fanning a pair in the first inning, Honiotes struck out the side in the fourth and seemingly got stronger as the game went along.
Despite giving up a pair of unearned runs in the fifth, Honiotes reached back for a little more and retired the game’s final 7 batters — 5 on strikeouts.
“I felt really good today,” said Honiotes. “At school today I knew that it was going to be a good day because the weather was nice and I just felt good coming into it. Plus, I had an extra day of rest because I was supposed to pitch yesterday (against St. Charles North).”
Monday’s rainout pushed Honiotes’ start back a day.
“As soon as we knew about the rainout yesterday, we knew we were going to get him,” Batavia coach Matt Holm said of Honiotes. “He’s very deserving — he’s a good pitcher.”
Is Honiotes as good a pitcher as the Bulldogs have faced this season?
“Oh, yeah,” said Holm, whose team has seen Neuqua Valley’s Nick Blackburn and St. Charles East ace Kyle Manske this year. “I don’t even know who I’d compare him to. I don’t think we’ve seen anybody that has been that good.”
After wasting a couple scoring chances in the first 2 innings, Geneva broke through with a 3-run third off of Bulldogs sophomore pitcher Micah Coffey (0-2).
John Swiderski’s RBI double brought home Andy Francis (2-for-4, double) with the game’s first run before designated hitter Anthony Bragg (2-for-3) smacked a 2-run double to make it 3-0.
“He’s starting to break out a little bit,” Hahn said of Bragg. “I told him that we’re going to need him if we’re going to make a run in the playoffs. It was nice to see that today.”
Mitch Endriukaitis delivered a 2-out RBI single in the fifth for the Vikings’ final run.
Honiotes did the rest, with some help from his batterymate.
“I think Johnny (Swiderski) deserves as much credit as Andy does,” Hahn said of his catcher. “Andy’s got to deliver the ball and hit spots but John’s so valuable behind the plate.
“Any time our pitchers have success, I’ve got to immediately give John credit, too.”