Baseball: St. Charles East slips past Geneva

One day after bashing 14 hits and scoring 15 runs against South Elgin, St. Charles East's baseball team reached double figures in both columns again against Geneva Tuesday afternoon.

And for the second consecutive day, the Saints (12-7-1, 10-3) had to hang on for dear life, holding off a valiant Viking late-inning rally to win 13-11 in Upstate Eight Conference River Division action in Geneva.

Freshman catcher Kyle Hayes fueled the Saints' 11-hit attack with a perfect 4 for 4 day at the plate that included a pair of solo home runs and a career-high 5 RBI.

His RBI single plated the first run of the game in the opening inning and his second home run - a line-drive missile to straightaway center in the sixth - capped the Saints' scoring and extended their lead to 13-6.

Between that, he smacked the first home run of his varsity career and delivered a 2-run single - all during the Saints' 8-run, fourth-inning uprising.

"It all feels good obviously," said Hayes. "My approach whenever I go up to the plate is to hit the ball hard and I feel like I did that successfully today."

Hayes' performance was an impressive one to say the least.

"Absolutely," said Saints coach Len Asquini, who called Hayes up from the sophomore team after the first week of the season. "He was squaring those balls up, too. It's a short porch and the wind was blowing out but he hit those balls hard."

After Jack Jordan's opposite-field RBI single in the fifth made it 11-5, sophomore Clay Conn (2-for-3, 2 walks, 2B, 2 RBI) belted a solo home run to lead off the sixth as the Saints' lead grew to 7 at 13-6.

St. Charles East needed just about all of its run production as the Vikings (11-9-1, 8-4-1) clawed back for 5 runs in their half of the sixth.

Dom Guido's 1-out grand slam cut the Saints' lead to 13-10 and Nick Black's solo blast pulled the Vikings within 2 at 13-11.

"I thought our kids competed," said Geneva coach Brad Wendell. "We weren't out of it until the end. You get a guy on base there and you never know."

After giving up the two home runs in the sixth, junior Thomas Schroeder (2-for-4, RBI) worked a 1-2-3 seventh to preserve the save for winning pitcher Alec Rupp (2-2).

The junior right-hander went 4⅔ innings, allowing 6 runs (5 earned) on 6 hits with 2 walks and 5 strikeouts.

Geneva grabbed a 3-2 lead in the first, benefiting from back-to-back, bad-hop singles by Nathan Dewey (2-for-5) and Cullen Geary as well as Josh Rose's RBI double and Garrett Bragg's run-scoring single.

"Alec did a real nice job to keep them at five," Asquini said of his starting pitcher. "We counted four runs because of the field. We thought those first three runs were outs but we did a great job of overcoming it.

"He did a great job staying composed and got his second win of the year."

Geneva pitchers issued 5 walks and hit 3 batters.

"When we throw strikes, we do pretty well and when we don't, we struggle," said Wendell. "It's what we've talked about all year."