Baseball: St. Charles North rallies from 6 down, beats Saints
It wasn't a good day to be a pitcher Friday afternoon at St. Charles East.
St. Charles North and the host Saints combined for 15 walks, 4 hit batsmen, 22 runs and 22 base hits during the opener of their important 3-game DuKane Conference series.
Trailing 10-4 after 5 innings, the North Stars (14-6, 9-1) roared back with a 4-run sixth before completing the comeback with 4 more runs in the top of the seventh during their 12-10 victory.
"I walked through the dugout a couple different times," said North Stars coach Todd Genke. "I just wanted to see how they'd react. I saw a lot of positives - guys in the game."
Early on, Genke figured this wasn't going to be your average day at the ballpark.
"I told them in the third inning that it's like Wrigley Field," said the coach. "With the wind blowing out, there's no lead safe. It had that feeling."
The North Stars began their rally with back-to-back singles from Kevin White and Kyler Brown in the sixth before Egon Hein's 2-out hit by pitch loaded the bases for Patrick Bellock, who delivered a 2-run single to make it 10-6.
After Nick DeMarco got hit by a pitch, back-to-back RBI walks to Ryan Thiesse and Andrew Jimenez narrowed the gap to 10-8 before Saints reliever Grant Meador induced a grounder for the third out.
In the seventh, Brown reached on a leadoff walk. After Michael Gattuso's 1-out bloop single, Hein launched a clutch 3-run home run over the left-center fence to give the North Stars an 11-10 lead - their first since the top of the second inning.
"I was just trying to put the ball in play," said Hein. "I was just trying to hit it hard. I saw a fastball and I wanted to jump on it and that's what I did."
Off the bat, Hein wasn't sure if it was a home run.
"Not really," said Hein, who finished 2 for 4 with 4 RBI. "I saw it kind of floating and as I turned around first (base) I thought it had a chance. I saw it land and it was awesome."
One batter later, sophomore Nick DeMarco (3 for 4) smashed his second home run of the game to extend the lead to 12-10.
"We had some really great at-bats," said Genke of his team's 16-hit attack. "Guys just finding a way to get on base. For us to give up seven runs and not panic shows the mettle of these kids. We've got some great seniors on this team that will not allow us to lose our composure and our younger guys have a will to win and compete. It was great to see."
DeMarco worked a 1-2-3 seventh to record the save.
"It was a great team win," said DeMarco.
Junior Jeremy Lambel recorded the win for the North Stars.
St. Charles East spotted the North Stars a 4-0 lead before staging a 7-run second that featured back-to-back-to-back home runs from Kyle Hayes (2-run), Cole Conn and Thomas Schroeder and Ben Testo's RBI double.
"I haven't seen back-to-back-to-back home runs in a long time," said Saints coach Len Asquini. "I have not been a part of it so that was unbelievable."
On the flip side, the Saints couldn't overcome unusual wildness from their pitchers.
"We played very good defense, had a very good offensive day and ran the bases well," said Asquini. "We were just missing the one piece and that piece happened to be big today. We just needed to pitch a little bit better."