Baseball: Prospect inches closer to MSL East crown
Prospect used its bats to inch closer to the Mid-Suburban League East baseball title Friday in Palatine. The Knights banged out 11 hits, five of which were doubles, to cruise past Fremd 12-5.
Prospect (17-4-1, 12-1) has a three-game lead in the East over Buffalo Grove, which lost 1-0 to Schaumburg. Prospect can clinch the title with a win in its last three games. The Knights play Palatine on Saturday and meet Buffalo Grove next Monday and Wednesday.
"There is still some time to go," Prospect coach Ross Giusti said. "We just have to take care of our end of it."
Prospect looked like it was going to run away with the game early.
The Knights scored an unearned in the first when Ethan Rossi, who had walked, scored on a pair of Fremd throwing errors.
Prospect then tallied five times in the third. Doubles by Peyton Burgh, Tyler Ciulla, Kyle Odeshoo and singles by Rossi and Jake Bush along with two more Fremd errors made it 6-0.
"We had good approaches at the plate all day," said Rossi, who would also walk and get hit by a pitch. "We had a lot of energy and we were active out there."
The Knights added on when Odeshoo singled home Rossi, who had walked and stole second.
Fremd (9-12, 7-6) made a solid attempt to get back into the game. The Vikings scored twice in the fifth as Drew Seidel, who singled and Thomas Plizga, who had walked, scored on an error and balk respectively to make it 7-2.
The Vikings made it 7-5 in the bottom of the sixth. Seidel tripled in Nick Varon, who had doubled, and Bo O'Brien, who had singled. Seidel then scored on a dropped third strike and suddenly it was 7-5.
Prospect then nailed the door shut on the Vikings.
For the second inning in the game, the Knights batted around and scored 5 runs. Rossi and Cole Lannert each doubled in the inning, Brady Jensen and Ciulla each singled, and Will Sommers had an RBI walk.
"We battled back," Fremd coach Chris Piggott said. "But when you have a big inning you have to follow with a shutdown inning and we didn't do that. They hit the fastball and we didn't."
Rossi, Ciulla and Odeshoo each had a single and double while Rossi, Ciulla and Burgh each had two RBI.
"We have been struggling at the plate the last couple of games," Ciulla said. "We have been scoring enough runs to win baseball games. We wanted come out and attack. It's all about working in the cage and resetting that mindset and coming out to play."
Giusti liked the way his team came out and swung aggressively.
"It's their demeanor," Giusti said. "They attack the zone and they attack the plate. We have been doing that all year. We have been putting pressure on teams by putting the ball in play and hitting it hard and with authority."