Baseball: Dillow, Wheaton North slow down St. Charles North
You couldn’t blame Wheaton North starter Patrick Dillow for being a little concerned taking the mound Wednesday afternoon against a potent St. Charles North lineup. Dillow and his Falcons teammates were roughed up the previous two days in one-sided losses to the North Stars.
But Wednesday was a new day and well, baseball is baseball. Dillow pitched into the seventh and left the mound with the score tied 1-1. When his hard grounder wasn’t fielded cleanly in the bottom of the seventh, Wheaton North’s Alex Karlovitz raced home with the winning run in a 2-1 DuKane Conference thriller.
“Going into it I got a little bit worried. That’s a really good lineup there,” admitted Dillow, who has now allowed just one run in each of his two starts this spring. “But coming off a really strong start in Alabama I kind of used the momentum.”
St. Charles North (6-3, 2-1) had blasted the Falcons 12-0 on Monday and 17-7 the next day, only to be held to just a single, first-inning run in the series finale.
“That’s baseball,” North Stars coach Todd Genke said. “You never know what you’re going to get day to day. We’ve been swinging the bats pretty well. We still hit some balls hard today. I’m just disappointed, we had some chances.”
The visitors struck first when Jackson Spring opened the game with a single, stole second base and eventually came home on a sacrifice fly by Parker Reinke. But St. Charles North stranded 10 runners, including two in the top of the seventh after a one-out double by Mike Buono ended Dillow’s day on the hill. Reliever Rich Schilling walked the first batter he faced but then recorded back-to-back strikeouts to keep the game tied at 1-1.
“We left a small village on base,” Genke said. “Any time you get chances to score against a quality opponent like Wheaton North you have to execute. We did that the first two games of the series. Today we just didn’t.”
Like Dillow, St. Charles North starter Keaton Reinke was also on his game Wednesday and he too pitched into the seventh. But after a leadoff walk to Karlovitz, Luke Holtz came on in relief. A sacrifice bunt was followed by a single by Carter Johnson which led to an intentional walk that loaded the bases.
Holtz almost worked out of the jam after getting a strikeout for the second out of the frame and then Dillow’s ground ball to short, but a fielding error allowed the winning run to score.
“It’s a great lineup,” Falcons coach Dan Schoessling said of the North Stars. “They were really spraying the ball all over the park the last two days. For Patrick to have that command to shut down that lineup….that was really impressive and we really needed it.”
Dillow, who homered in Tuesday’s loss, kept the North Stars off balance with a nice mix of sliders and changeups as the hosts improved to 5-4-1 overall and claimed their first conference win.
“I like my slider but today my changeup was working and diving,” he said. “It was a good win. Jake [Johnson] made a bunch of plays out there at short, and we were solid all around on defense.”