Baseball: Glenbard East completes sweep of Glenbard South
Only 24 hours after beating Glenbard South, 11-0, in Lombard behind the arm of Jayden Phistry, Glenbard East faced its Upstate Eight East rival again Tuesday in Glen Ellyn. The Rams were almost as dominant in a 9-2 victory, and they didn’t surrender a run until the final inning.
Senior pitcher Lucas Calderin threw five shutout innings and had 10 strikeouts, fanning at least two in each inning. Those strikeouts were spread over five Raiders hitters who each went down at the plate twice against him.
“I'm hitting the corners,” Calderin said. “Just attack the corners, and if they're not gonna swing at it, just keep piling it up. And if they're gonna foul it off like they were doing, just throw it off speed in the same spot, and then, they miss it.”
Glenbard East (10-6-1, 8-1) gave Calderin some early support when Carson Pignato singled with one out in the top of the first inning, moved to second base on a balk and scored on an RBI single from Jackson Turco.
Jacob Ruge gave up only two earned runs in four innings for Glenbard South (9-11-1, 6-3-1), but his last frame saw him walk two batters, hit another and throw a wild pitch that allowed one run to score.
Ruge also was let down by one Raiders error after another in a six-run fourth inning, the most consequential of which was a bad infield throw with two outs and the bases loaded, which allowed all three baserunners to score.
The Rams sent 12 men to the plate in that fateful fourth and might have unnerved the Raiders when four of their runners stole second.
“You never know what happens until you put the ball in play,” said Glenbard East coach Clayton George. “So whatever happens, you take advantage if they make a mistake, and we get a base hit, we just take advantage of it the best way we can.”
Gavin Pogorzelski pitched the final three innings for Glenbard South, allowing only a two-run double to Carter Hoovel in the seventh.
Josh Ziemer relieved Calderin and pitched a perfect sixth but ran into trouble in the seventh. The first four Raiders batters reached, culminating in Tim Ewald capping a 4-for-4 day with an RBI single to score Owen Martinez. He also would have scored Cooper Langreder but for a Rams relay from center field that got Langreder at the plate.
When Frankie Cassata drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs to score Pogorzelski, Collin LaCount was called upon to end things. This he did by getting Ruge to strike out looking.
“We haven't had a practice in two weeks,” said Glenbard South coach Marco Eufrasio. “We've played every day due to rainouts and things like that. So tomorrow's gonna be nice to be out here. It's gonna be a beautiful day. We're gonna reset ourselves and continue to move forward.”