Baseball: Huntley's big sixth inning sinks McHenry
Huntley's No. 9 hitter Lucas Goldstein realized what his mission was going to be when Harout Meyer led off the top of the sixth inning with a single ahead of him.
Before Red Raiders coach Andy Jakubowski even called Goldstein over, he knew he would be asked to bunt Meyer to second.
That became slightly complicated when Goldstein took one strike and bunted foul on a second strike. The way his team had been executing bunts, Jakubowski was not giving a bunt sign with two strikes and risk another foul that would have resulted in an out.
"I knew (coach) would be a little mad since I didn't get the bunt down," Goldstein said. "'I need to get a hit here.' I got a hit and it felt good. I knew if I didn't get the bunt down I had to do something, the hit felt good."
Goldstein's single to right-center field provided a push for Huntley's three-run inning as the Raiders defeated McHenry, 7-5, in their Fox Valley Conference baseball victory Saturday afternoon at Petersen Park.
Following Goldstein's hit, leadoff man Ryan Bakes ripped a shot down the third-base line to score Meyer and Goldstein, who both had advanced a base on a wild pitch. Brandon Hanley's ground ball later brought in another run.
"(Goldstein) didn't execute that and he comes up with the big two-strike hit," said Jakubowski, whose team is 8-1, 3-0 in the FVC. "You look at the big equation and if we get our bunt down, now with the base open are they going to pitch to Ryan? With him getting that base hit, they have to pitch to Ryan.
"Ryan turned on a pitch that was right on the chalk in front of me and that kind of helped and we got some insurance runs we needed. It wasn't a pretty ballgame, but we found a way to get it done."
Huntley led, 7-2, going into the bottom of the sixth, but McHenry (2-3, 1-2) was not done.
Ricky Powell singled and advanced on errant pickoff throw. Gavin Micklinghoff singled and Cooper Cohn's sacrifice fly sent Powell home. After Connor Rodgers singled, Jakubowski went to Vitellaro, his closer.
Vitellaro threw wide of first on Cole Kersten's tapper in front of home plate, which loaded the bases. He then walked Lleyton Grubich on four pitches and went 2-0 on Logan Wirtz before rallying back.
Vitellaro struck out Wirtz and retired Kyle Kaempf on a grounder to shortstop to keep it at 7-4.
"That (strikeout against Wirtz) was one of the biggest pitches in the game," Vitellaro said. "They were up, had confidence, and I felt like getting that pitch through gave us a better opportunity to win the game.
"I just took a deep breath, trusted my teammates and had confidence in myself to get it done and confidence on my teammates that we were able to get the win. We're happy to grind out that win."
Powell singled and scored on Micklinghoff's one-out double in the seventh, but Vitellaro got the final two outs to end the game.
"Michael knows he's our guy," Jakubowski said. "We're going to live and die with him. We have the utmost confidence in him.
"It was, in all three phases, pitching, defense and hitting, probably our worst game of the year, but we found a way to gut it out and took advantages of some mistakes and were able to add on."
Grubich, the Warriors' lefty starter, was not hit hard. He struck out seven through five innings and allowed eight hits, all singles. McHenry errors led to four unearned runs.
"(Grubich) threw the ball well and competed," Warriors coach Brian Rockweiler said. "I was proud of the way we played. We could have made a couple more plays on the infield and it would have been a little different.
"Our approach at the plate was pretty good and they kept fighting. We didn't get down and fold, especially against a team like that, and they didn't."
Grubich's mental approach was to not feel pressure against the team the Prep Baseball Report website has ranked No. 1 in the state.
"There's no pressure. They have all the pressure," Grubich said. "I just go out and give them my best stuff and go from there. My fastball and slider combo was working well with the lefties. to the righties outside fastballs.
"I felt great. Even though it was a loss, it was a good outing, my arm felt good."