Baseball: Conant’s bats bounce back in win over Leyden

Both Leyden and Conant headed into their Wednesday afternoon nonconference baseball game in Hoffman Estates looking to bounce back after each squad dropped a one-run decision the previous day.

The Eagles lost a late inning West Suburban Gold opener at Willowbrook while the Cougars dropped an eight-inning heartbreaker at Niles North.

Conant, last spring's Class 4A runner-up, earned a 13-2 five-inning win over the visitors from Northlake to move their record to 3-1 on the young season.

"Baseball is the best game when you get two-hit on a Tuesday and then pound out 13 hits on a Wednesday," Conant Coach Derek Fivelson said.

"It's a good job from this team bouncing back offensively because we struggled a little bit yesterday getting quality at-bats and today up and down the lineup we got some quality at-bats."

Things got going for the Cougars in their half of the second after two outs when Eagles shortstop Sammy Calderon's attempted putout of a Kakero Fujino grounder got by first baseman Eddie Carrillo leading to a pair of runs scoring and a three-run inning.

Then Conant exploded for eight runs in the bottom of third highlighted by a Luis Avila two-run triple that became a complete round trip around the bases when a throw to nab him at third went awry allowing him to reach home.

After Leyden (2-2) got on the board with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth, Avila drove in the second Cougars run by beating out an infield grounder in the bottom half of the frame that brought Martinez home and completed the game's scoring.

"After the loss yesterday, we were just trying to have a better focus today and come back stronger," Avila said.

"It was just a great effort from the whole team."