Baseball: Win over WW South leaves Wheaton North smiling

Don't question the logic of a baseball winning streak.

That's certainly not Tyler Woltman's job, even after he delivered the game-winning hit for Wheaton North in Friday's 5-4 DuKane Conference victory over visiting Wheaton Warrenville South.

Bottom line ... good things just seem to happen when you're winning. It happened again as the Falcons won their seventh straight in the series opener against their cross-town rivals.

"A seven-game winning streak will get you smiling real fast," said Woltman, a junior catcher committed to Illinois State. "I feel like we've been playing well. We just need to keep in that winning mindset and we'll be fine."

The Falcons (12-7, 7-3) watched a 4-0 lead turn into a 4-4 tie in the top of the fifth inning when the Tigers (8-10, 2-8) batted around and received run-scoring hits from Mike Kowalczyk, Brad Novak and Mike Duttlinger. Ryan Obrist drove in a run with a groundout.

The score stayed tied until the bottom of the sixth. One-out singles by Mike Profita and Jacob Schauer set the stage for Woltman's RBI single to left.

"We just needed to come up with a big hit at the right time," said WW South coach John Scherrman, whose team stranded 10 runners. "You have to be able to take advantage of that. The thing I like is that we keep fighting. It's good to see because there's too much important baseball left to be played."

Woltman's 2-run fourth-inning double gave Wheaton North a 4-0 lead. He and Joe Klein went 3-for-4 while Kowalczyk had 2 hits. Jay Gail earned the win with 2 scoreless innings of relief.

"A lot of contributions from a lot of guys for us," said Wheaton North coach Dan Schoessling. "It was a good team win. Obviously some big timely hits when we had opportunities."

Twitter: @kevin_schmit