St. Charles East falls to Bartlett in extra innings

Bartlett's baseball team hadn't experienced a great deal of success in down-to-the wire contests early this season.

That is, until Friday.

Cruising through the first 6 innings with a 2-0 lead and ace southpaw Kyle King on the mound, the Hawks (8-4, 3-1) squandered their advantage and nearly lost the game in the bottom of the seventh before pushing an unearned run across in the top of the eighth to edge host St. Charles East 3-2.

After Mike Mancuso reached first on an error to lead off the eighth and took second on an errant pickoff attempt, Erik Lira's 2-out single left runners on first and third. Two pitches later, Mancuso raced home with the go-ahead run on a passed ball.

Alex VanNess pitched a 1-2-3 eighth as the Hawks emerged with a bounce-back victory after Thursday's 6-3 loss to the Saints (3-7, 1-2).

"We'd been in this spot now twice and both times we weren't successful," said Hawks coach Chris Pemberton. "So for our confidence it was a huge step to get this win in the late innings after facing a possible loss."

It seemed unlikely that the Hawks would need any late-inning magic considering the Creighton-bound King had allowed just 1 base hit - a fourth-inning single off the bat of the Saints' Kyle Wiebe - through the first 6 innings.

However, King, who relied on a sharp-breaking curveball during his 9-strikeout performance, ran into trouble in the seventh when he walked Tommy Laudadio after Johnathan Erickson reached on an infield error to lead off the inning.

That's when Pemberton elected to go to his bullpen, bringing in Devin Rowland (4-1).

"I was running out of gas a little bit," admitted King.

Tommy Konrad greeted Rowland with an RBI single to right, cutting the deficit to 2-1.

After Konrad stole second, Evan Prose was hit by a pitch to load the bases with nobody out.

Dan White then laced a first-pitch single to right, driving in Laudadio with the tying run. However, King, now playing right field, threw a strike to Hawks catcher Greg Partyka to nail Konrad at the plate with what would have been the winning run.

"It was a bit of a rainbow," said Pemberton of King's outfield assist. "Fortunately, he missed the cutoff man so we had a tag at the plate."

Rowland escaped the seventh without further damage, recording the third out of the inning on a rare swinging strike three/hit by pitch (batter called out on a dead ball).

"To Devin's credit, he made the pitches when he had to," said Pemberton. "Getting the outs for his confidence is going to go a long way in helping him down the road."

The Saints received a solid starting pitching performance of their own from Wiebe, who fanned 5 and allowed 5 hits in 6 innings.

"We made some good plays defensively and got strong pitching from Kyle and Dan," said Saints coach Mark Foulkes. "That's been a big turnaround this past week."

Bartlett's David Palma snapped a scoreless deadlock with his first home run of the season in the fifth before Lira's sixth-inning RBI single added an insurance run.

According to Foulkes, extending the game to extra innings was a definite positive - especially against a pitcher like King.

"Trust me, I wasn't sad to see him go," said the coach. "He was everything advertised and more. Our kids battled back - we just fell a little bit short but the battle was great.

"All you can ask going into the seventh inning is a chance to win and we had that."