Baseball: St. Charles North's Litavecz fires gem vs. St. Charles E.
St. Charles North's baseball team brings plenty of confidence to the field any time Ryan Litavecz heads to the pitching mound.
For good reason.
The senior right-hander tossed a 4-hit complete game during the North Stars' 5-1 Upstate Eight Conference River Division victory over cross-town rival St. Charles East (22-9, 16-6) Tuesday night at Northwestern Medicine Field in Geneva.
Litavecz improved his record to 5-1 with an efficient 84-pitch performance that included a pair of walks and 5 strikeouts as the North Stars (27-4, 21-1) earned their eighth consecutive victory over the Saints.
"I'm a pitch to contact guy," said Litavecz, who pitched his way out of a couple middle-inning jams. "I have a really good infield and outfield so I let them make plays for me."
St. Charles East left runners stranded at second and third with 2 outs in the first inning and hit into a rally-killing double play in the third after back-to-back singles from John Dellostritto and Justin Galante (2 for 3).
St. Charles North grabbed a 1-0 lead in the third off Saints senior starting pitcher Niko Klebosits (7-1) on Zach Mettetal's 2-out RBI double to left-center after Anthony Delisi's single.
In the fifth, the North Stars made it 2-0 on Raphael Rhoades' RBI single.
St. Charles North broke the game open during a 3-run sixth that included Tommy Nelson's triple, Brenden Norberg's RBI sacrifice fly, and Rhoades' 2-run double that landed at the base of the left-field fence.
"I thought it was going to go out," said Rhoades, who finished 2-for-3 with 3 RBI from the 9-spot in the batting order. "It felt awesome. Last year, I didn't get to play much because I was a junior behind a lot of good outfielders so it's nice to get some starts this year to show off my talents."
"We talk about opportunities all the time," said North Stars coach Todd Genke. "He's been in the mix with the outfielders. I'm really proud of him because he took advantage of his opportunity today.
"You don't see a kid hit a ball as far as he did today normally. The one I really liked was the shot down the right-field line that made it 2-0. I thought that was a big swing right there."
St. Charles East got on the board in the sixth as Galante led off with a double down the left-field line and eventually scored on Klebosits' run-producing groundout.
But it wasn't enough to beat Litavecz.
"Ryan's been fantastic all season," said Genke. "If you watch him pitch, he does all the little things - he works fast and he gets ahead. Our guys love playing behind him defensively because he'll let guys swing the bats a little bit. The way our defense is playing he's the kind of guy we want on the mound."
The Saints will look to avoid the 3-game sweep Wednesday at St. Charles North.
"If we catch the balls that should be caught and we make the plays we're supposed to make, then it's a totally different game," said Saints coach Len Asquini.
"We blew another good pitching performance. Jeremy (Cox) pitched well yesterday and I thought Niko did tonight as well. Two winnable pitching performances - and we didn't get it done defensively or offensively. You've got to earn your wins against them and we haven't the last two days. Hopefully tomorrow the guys will go out and earn a win."