Baseball: Machon, Wauconda a big hit against Wheeling
Hard-hitting Alex Machon didn't size up darting running backs or scrambling quarterbacks Saturday.
Instead, he punished baseballs.
Like the one that sailed over the scoreboard down the left-field line in the fifth inning with two Wauconda teammates aboard.
It capped an 8-run inning and put a capper on the Bulldogs' 13-4 win over visiting Wheeling.
"It might have hit the water tower for all I know," joked Machon, looking out at the Village of Wauconda water tower north of the varsity baseball field. "I got thrown out earlier in the inning (trying to steal second base) so I didn't want Coach to persecute me."
Wauconda coach Bill Sliker was loving what he saw from Machon and his teammates in the nonconference game. The Bulldogs turned 3 double plays and pounded out 14 hits in their home opener. A team that won 28 games last season, Wauconda (1-6) finally got its first victory of 2017 on April 8.
Machon, who homered in an 11-8 loss to Antioch on Friday, kept up his hot hitting against Wheeling (2-5-1), going 3-for-3. Before his 3-run homer in the Bulldogs' 8-run fifth inning, the Illinois Wesleyan-bound linebacker doubled off the glove of Wildcats center fielder Kyle Bullock, who made a lunging attempt in deep center, and smoked a double off the base of the fence in left-center.
"We moved the lineup around a little bit (the last couple of days) and everyone has started to get hot," Machon said. "I can't tell you exactly what we did, but (laughing) we pulled some voodoo last night and got the baseball gods on our side. It was a good win."
A pair of RBI singles by starting pitcher John Herbst and 2-run homer by cleanup-hitting Jake Harmon helped Wauconda build a 5-0 lead after three innings against righty Patrick Cooney. But Wheeling got a two-out, 2-run single by Cade Kaplan in the fourth and threatened again in the fifth. Herbst allowed back-to-back walks to start the inning, and when Drew Roberts followed with a double, the Wildcats were within 5-3 and had runners on second and third with none out.
"I thought I was coming out," said Herbst, who twice was visited on the mound by Sliker. "I realized what I was doing wrong. I was short-arming everything. I kept telling myself after that, 'I got to reach back more.' "
He did, retiring Wheeling's Nos. 3 and 4 hitters on swinging strikes, before an error got the visitors within 5-4. But Herbst got a fielder's choice to keep his team in front.
"We had some good things going, but we just couldn't cash in in the middle of our lineup," Wheeling coach Jason Wieder said. "(Wauconda) really swung it today. They were sprinting to the box to get in there. We got behind some hitters, but our kids competed on the mound."
Herbst pitched 6 innings, allowing only 1 earned run, while striking out seven and walking four.
"John pitched well," Sliker said. "He was getting ahead in the count until the (fourth)."
Herbst helped himself by going 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI singles. Wauconda got 2 hits apiece from Brock Glavey and Trevor Sefcik (2-run single). Tyler Husko had a run-scoring single and sacrifice fly, and Doug Antonucci delivered an RBI single.
"That (first win) is a big monkey off our back," Sliker said. "The kids have been playing hard. We've had some one-run games. It seemed like every game we would start out real well and then we'd have a bad inning. Sort of like today. We were able to battle through it this time."
Wheeling mustered just 5 hits, including a pair by Brian Maloney, who doubled and reached base three times.
"We're just not swinging it," Wieder said. "We're working hard at it. We spent a lot of time in the cages this week. We just haven't quite seen the results yet that we're hoping for."