Baseball: Grayslake Central's Sturm cooks up another win

Like any good chef, a good pitcher has to be able to find the plate.

Ask Grayslake Central senior right-hander Eric Sturm, who's both a good chef and good pitcher. Better yet, ask Rams coach Troy Whalen about the former.

"He cooks a good dish," Whalen said.

"Anything," Sturm said of his favorite plates. "Fancy stuff. Steak, salmon, that kind of stuff."

Ask Lakes coach Bob Holst about the latter after Sturm struck out nine batters and walked only one in 5⅓ shutout innings. He earned the win, as Grayslake Central completed a three-game sweep Friday with a 5-2 victory over the visiting Eagles in Northern Lake County Conference play.

"He did a nice job," Holst said. "His breaking pitch was working well."

Sturm wants to be a chef or sports nutritionist and plans to attend Johnson & Wales University, which is known for its College of Culinary Arts. He will also play baseball for the Division III school in Rhode Island, and the three-year varsity pitcher has shown his potential in his last two starts. He was 4-2 with a 2.50 ERA as a junior.

"He was great last week against (Grayslake) North, and he had even better command today," Whalen said. "The thing we talk about with the pitchers is, 'Try to one-up each other.' Coby (Moe) struck out 10 (Thursday at Lakes) and walked one, so Eric came out today and tried to match him. That's good, friendly competition."

On a pitcher's day - windy, temperature in the 40s, gray skies - Sturm won a duel with Kansas State-bound Logan Mueller. Up 1-0 on Marcus Maristela's fielder's-choice RBI in the third, Grayslake Central touched Mueller for 4 runs in the fifth, with the big blows being Moe's RBI double to dead center and Kevin O'Brien's run-scoring single. Paul Kula added a pinch-hit sacrifice fly.

While Grayslake Central, which got a pair of hits from Moe, improved to 10-2 and 5-1 in the NLCC, Lakes fell to 3-10 and 0-3. Grayslake Central had beaten the Eagles' Illinois-bound Joe Glassey earlier in the week.

"Three parts of baseball, right? Pitching, hitting, defense," Holst said. "When we pitch well, our defense isn't there. When our defense is there, we pitch OK or we don't hit it."

Credit Sturm for Lakes' inability to hit the ball with authority. Spotting his fastball and big curveball, he allowed just 3 hits. Whalen pulled him after 83 pitches, with one on and one out in the sixth.

"Obviously you're a little tight with the temperature and wind, but we knew this was a big game," Sturm said. "We really wanted to take the third one in the series. That adrenaline made it seem like a normal day. The command was there today. I felt like I didn't have to think about my mechanics. In past starts when I struggled, I was thinking about my mechanics. This time I was just trusting the coach."

Lakes finally mustered an attack in the seventh. Logan Queen singled and Mueller doubled to start the inning against Daniel Guckenberger, who had relieved Sturm. Sean Gniadek entered in a non-save situation and gave up an RBI single to Julian Carrillo (2-for-3) and a sacrifice fly to Chance Andell, but got the final out on a called-third strike.

"Seanie came in and did a great job," said Whalen, who had Nate Twardock warming up. "Sean started out the year and was injured, and he's worked his way back. He just goes out there and competes. He's got no fear."

Gniadek and his teammates surely do have appetites. And win or lose, Sturm will probably take care of them before the season is over.

"Planning on it," Sturm said. "We'll have a team dinner sometime and I'll cook everyone burgers. They've been asking for it for a few years now."