Baseball: Gillette homers in Dundee-Crown’s win over Burlington Central

Jake Gillette has come close to hitting a varsity home run. Dundee-Crown’s baseball team has come close to a winning game recently.

Friday, in a Fox Valley Conference finale, Gillette and the Chargers earned some satisfaction, at last.

Gillette belted a two-run homer, the first in his three years on varsity, and D-C broke out offensively in beating visiting Burlington Central 11-8 on a sunny, wind-blowing-out day in Carpentersville.

“Feels great, for sure,” Gillette said of D-C’s first win since May 2. “I feel like the whole energy today was completely shifted, and everybody was fully focused on the game. The first inning we came out, played great [scoring three runs], and it just carried on from there.”

D-C (10-19, 2-16) had lost six games in a row and its last 11 in FVC action.

“I feel like we’ve been close the last two weeks, and it just hasn’t resulted in wins,” Chargers coach Andrew Zimmer said. “We kept it close against Jacobs, we kept it close against [Prairie Ridge]. Last week we really got walked off three times, so we’ve been in ballgames. I’ve been preaching that we just have to finish. We’re right there.”

Central (12-16-2, 6-12) trailed for good after D-C answered the Rockets’ two-run third with two runs of its own in the bottom of the inning to go up 5-3. But the Rockets scored at least one run in each of the last three innings to keep the game tight.

Recent call-up Alex Mayzer belted a two-run homer to deep left field in the fifth to get Central to within 6-5. It was the first varsity homer for the 6-foot freshman, who started the season on the JV team.

“I hit it pretty good, right on the inside of the barrel,” Mayzer said. “I didn’t really know it was gone right off the bat. I hit it hard. That’s all you can ask for.”

Mayzer came to the plate again in the sixth with Central trailing 9-7 and runners on the corners with one out. Gillette, who relieved starter Nathan Bushy (five innings, five runs) to start the sixth, got Mayzer to hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

Mayzer was barely out at first base.

“He’s learning,” Rockets coach Kyle Nelson said of Mayzer, who’s had fewer than 40 varsity at-bats. “It’s a pretty steep learning curve going from 14U baseball to JV for 15 games and then coming up here to the Fox Valley Conference, but he’s held his own. Defensively, he plays really well at third base. I like his actions there. We needed some power, and he’s been able to supply a little of that.”

Gillette homered in the fifth off lefty Daniel Koertgen, who relieved starter Aidric Arndt. Gillette pulled a shot over the fence in left field in what turned out to be his final at-bat in FVC play, extending D-C’s lead to 9-5.

“I come close all the time, but never get it out,” Gillette said. “I don’t think I got it all. I thought it was more on the hands. I wasn’t sure if it was going to sneak out or not.”

Zimmer couldn’t have been more thrilled for Gillette, who started the game at third base before throwing the final two innings to save it for Bushy.

“He’s done a fantastic job on the mound for us, and he’s played good third base for us,” Zimmer said. “It was a close game when he hit it, and he had two strikes. He just turned on one. I’m so happy for him. He did a fantastic job closing the game out, too.”

All nine starters in D-C’s batting order had at least one hit. Kyle Pierce went 3 for 4 with two doubles and a two-run triple in the first to start the scoring. Ryan Pierce (RBI), Brady Benton, Cole Pearson (two RBIs) and Shane DeMarsh (RBI, three stolen bases) each had two hits. Kaden Klancnik singled home two runs, and Ikey Grzynkowicz had a triple to deep center.

“They just kept swinging,” Nelson said of the Chargers, who lost to his Rockets 4-2 on Wednesday. “For two games in the series, they swung the bats really well. What I look at a lot of times with how someone’s seeing the ball is the way they take pitches, and they took a lot of curveballs that were close to the zone. They took a lot of fastballs that were close.”

Central’s Connor Sreckov drove in four runs thanks to a two-run single and two sacrifice flies. Like D-C, all of the Rockets’ starters had at least one hit. Sam Maglares hit a solo homer in the seventh and also had a sacrifice fly.

“It’s going well,” Mayzer, who was 2 for 4, said of varsity ball. “We just haven’t been winning a lot of games, which stinks, but I like the team. The culture is good.”