Baseball: Huntley routs Dundee-Crown
Two runs would have sufficed considering how well Huntley ace Kyle Morgan was dealing at Dundee-Crown Tuesday.
Teammate Matt Rodriguez gave him three more with one fifth-inning swing.
Then the Red Raiders kept the line moving against some less-experienced relievers as a pitchers' duel devolved into a 19-0 Fox Valley Conference rout.
Morgan, a senior left-hander, went toe to toe with D-C senior lefty Erik Hedmark for the first innings. Up to that point, the only run against either all-area pitcher was the result of Kamrin Hoffmann's sacrifice fly.
Huntley (9-1, 2-0) added its second run in the top of the fifth on junior Jason Peters' safety squeeze. That brought Rodriguez to the plate with two runners aboard.
A right-handed hitter, Rodriguez worked a 3-1 count against the NIU-bound Hedmark, whose natural action on his fastball causes it to tail away from right-handers.
Huntley's 6-foot-1, 230-pound senior went with the tailing fastball and drove it the opposite way over the right-center field fence for a 3-run home run. Rodriguez's first varsity blast staked Morgan and the Red Raiders to a 5-0 lead.
Rodriguez learned a lesson from one at-bat to the next. An inning earlier Hedmark got him to ground out to first base using the same tailing fastball.
"Exact same pitch. I just ended up rolling it over," Rodriguez said. "So I tried to just stay more level, tried to drive the gap instead of trying to pull."
The home run spelled the end for Dundee-Crown's ace after 84 pitches. Hedmark (0-2) entered with a 1.11 ERA in 12⅔ innings. Huntley touched him for 5 runs (4 earned) on 5 hits. He walked 2 and struck out 2 in 4⅓ innings.
"I thought Erik came out and threw really well for us today," said D-C coach Matt Mueller, whose Chargers slipped to 1-7, 0-2. "Really, he made that one mistake and that turned the ballgame around but Morgan came out on the other side and just shoved on us. He had all his pitches working and he kept us off balance."
Morgan (4-0), who will pitch next season at McHenry County College, limited D-C to a lone hit: a fifth-inning infield single by Evan Wenc. He struck out 9 without a walk in a 66-pitch, 5-inning effort.
"First off, I love a challenge," Morgan said of the matchup against Hedmark. "This year I feel like I've come a long way. I feel like if I go against their best, I'm at my best and that's what I like. My team really came together and battled against a good pitcher."
Huntley scored 6 runs in the fifth inning and poured it on with a 12-run sixth. The 37-minute half inning featured three pitching changes as 16 Huntley batters collected 8 hits and 3 walks.