Baseball: South Elgin slugs its way past Glenbard East
The South Elgin baseball team broke out the bats against Glenbard East Saturday and broke a first-place tie in the Upstate Eight.
The Storm collected 12 hits, drew 2 walks and capitalized on 6 errors to win 9-3 in a battle between teams that entered tied for the UEC lead at the quarter pole.
Austin Doty and Ben Hetelle each had 3 hits for South Elgin (9-2, 7-1) and Garrett Wano delivered a fifth-inning sacrifice fly that snapped a 3-3 tie.
It was the second straight offensive outburst by the Storm. The lineup managed 14 hits against Rams pitching in an 11-3, series-opening win Friday.
"We're really hitting the ball well, really barreling up balls," Hetelle said. "Earlier in the season we were slow out of the gate but now we're starting to get through it."
"One through nine we're battling and we're pulling for each other right now," Doty said.
Glenbard East (10-6, 6-2) kept it close. The Rams were held scoreless for four innings by Storm starting pitcher Robbie Zagorski, but parlayed a fifth-inning leadoff walk into a 3 runs to tie the game 3-3. Jimmy Cotterill doubled down the right-field line to drive in a pair. He later scored the tying run on Jeremy Johnson's sacrifice fly. However, the Rams stranded two runners in scoring position.
"We're hitting the ball but we need to break through with that timely hit. That has kind of been eluding us this series so far," said Glenbard East coach Joel Pelland, whose team has been outhit 24-14 in the first two games of the series.
South Elgin shortstop Patrick Keaty doubled to open the bottom of the fifth, advanced to third on a Hetelle bunt hit and scored on Wano's sacrifice fly. Hetelle scored South Elgin's fifth run on a Glenbard East throwing error.
Storm coach Jim Kating summoned senior Grant Baker to finish on the mound after a South Elgin reliever walked two straight batters with one away in the sixth. Baker struck out the first man he faced and induced a groundball to third base to end the threat. He stranded two more in a scoreless seventh.
"I'm going right at these guys," Baker said. "I know they can hit. As long as I'm not walking people and giving up free bags, I know my defense will make plays."
South Elgin added 4 sixth-inning insurance runs to give Baker a cushion.
Glenbard East slipped into a second-place tie with West Aurora (10-4, 6-2), which won its fifth straight Saturday. The Rams will try to avoid the series sweep against South Elgin in Lombard Monday.
"They're a good team and we're a good team," Pelland said. "They just played better than us. Unfortunately, we made some plays out in the field that cost us some runs."
Catcher Bret Bushka (2-for-3) had the only multihit game for the Rams.