Baseball: Leyden upends Hoffman Estates

Leyden had Hoffman seeing double.

Leyden's Jose Solis and Spencer Messina combined to stymie Hoffman while four different Leyden players had doubles as the Eagles flew past the Hawks 7-2 Tuesday in a nonconference baseball game at Triton College in River Grove.

Solis threw four innings of 2-hit ball while Messina pitched the final three innings, allowing 3 hits. Each pitcher allowed a run as Leyden (1-2) picked up its first win of the young season.

"We were sharp today," Leyden coach Rob Hamann said. "It was our first game that we put it together. Our pitchers threw a lot of strikes and challenged their hitters."

Solis, who is a junior, retired the first eight batters and fanned five before giving way to Messina in the top of the fifth.

"Today I felt great," Solis said. "My arm felt real good, I was keeping runners off base and I was pitching really well. I wanted to go further in the game. But it is only our third game of the season so that is OK."

Solis got all the help he needed in the bottom of the first when Leyden parlayed 3 doubles into a pair of runs. Alex Duarte doubled down the line and scored on Ulises Hernandez' two-out bloop double. Hernandez then scored on Cole Wilson's ground-rule double.

The Eagles tallied two more runs in the second to make it 4-0. Jacob Vega walked and scored on Spencer Messina's single and an error that followed on the play. Messina would later score on a wild pitch.

Hoffman Estates (0-5) had an opportunity to get back into the game in the third and fourth innings.

The Hawks had a pair of runners on base in the third, but Solis turned them away. In the fourth, Hoffman's Kyle Krogstad, who reached on a fielders choice, scored on a throwing error. Again, Solis held the Hawks in check, stranding two runners.

Leyden was able to pull away in the fifth thanks again to another double that made it 6-1. This one came from Danny Determann down the left-field line scoring both Hernandez and Wilson, who both reached by being hit by pitch.

"It was an inside pitch and on my hands," Determann said. "I knew we needed to get a couple of runs, so my hit came at a big time for us."

Hoffman made a final push to get back into the game in the sixth.

Jim Kliver led off with a home run and then the Hawks loaded the bases on a pair of errors and an infield hit. Messina got a strikeout and a fly out to end the threat.

"I came in and did the job," said Messina, who is a junior. "The defense helped a lot. I had a double play and got some big outs when I needed to."

Leyden added an insurance run in the sixth on an RBI single by Duarte.

"It is the little things for us right now," said Hoffman coach Andrew Wulbecker, who is in his first year as head coach. "We talk about it every day. If we can control those, the wins will start coming."