King, St. Viator shine in 3-2 win over Carmel

Brendan King wanted to make sure St. Viator didn't get lit up again by Carmel.

The Corsairs scored 13 runs in Monday's East Suburban Catholic Conference baseball win and nicked up King for a 2-run first. Then the junior left-hander settled into a perfect groove in Wednesday night's game under the lights at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines.

King retired the final 18 hitters and the Lions (10-9, 1-5) took advantage of errors for runs in the bottom of the sixth and eighth innings for a 3-2 victory.

"Carmel is a pretty good team and he (King) was lights out," said Viator third baseman Kevin Gannon, who scored the winning run after a one-out single. "That was pretty impressive."

King (3-2) got hit in the hand with a line RBI single by Paul Poirer and Chris DiVarco followed with a sacrifice fly in the first. But Kevin Hendricks' single to start the third was the fourth and last hit off King.

King had 6 strikeouts and his only walk was to begin the game as he used a fastball, curve and changeup to throw 65 of 102 pitches for strikes.

"Me and coaches (Mike Manno and Eric Porter) and Cory Kay, who caught a great game, mixed up our pitches a lot," King said. "In previous starts I was getting behind hitters, but I stayed ahead and was able to throw (my changeup)."

King was backed by flawless defense that included two nice plays up the middle by second baseman David Alameda, a nice play by Gannon on a bunt and first baseman Mike Fleming's dive and toss to King.

"This is what I thought we'd get the whole year and we haven't," said Manno, whose team had lost five of its previous six games. "Obviously you see what happens when we do get it."

Carmel (14-6, 3-3) junior lefty Cale St. Clair was the tough-luck loser as he allowed only 1 earned run with 8 strikeouts in 71/3 innings. A double by Kay and single by Jake Mastrangeli set up Fleming's RBI grounder in the fourth.

A walk by Julian Sipiora and an error on Kay's sacrifice led to the tying run on Mastrangeli's double-play grounder. After Gannon singled in the eighth, Carmel coach Chuck Gandolfi pulled St. Clair with a 3-0 count to Sipiora and brought in sidearmer Nick Battalini.

Sipiora walked and Gannon scored after he screened shortstop Mike Pudlo on Kay's hard-hit grounder.

"Their kid threw strikes and they made plays when they had to," said Carmel coach Chuck Gandolfi. "They seemed a little bit more hungry than we were in my opinion."