Wheaton North keeps rolling, earns third DVC sweep

Wheaton North's baseball machine keeps rolling along.

The Falcons capped their third straight DuPage Valley Conference sweep with Wednesday's 6-3 win at West Chicago to extend their incredible unbeaten streak.

With a third straight win over the Wildcats, Wheaton North now stands at 16-0 overall and 9-0 in the DVC.

"We're always thinking ahead with the tournament, but we're also pretty good about focusing on the game at hand on a given day," said Vanderbilt-bound Falcons senior Jack DeAno. "We do a good job of just coming out ready to play every day."

It helps when you've got a trio of starting senior pitchers like DeAno - who improved to 4-0 with a 6-inning effort on Wednesday - Trey Martin (5-0) and Aric Dama (4-0).

DeAno was stellar for most of the game against the Wildcats (10-9, 3-6). He struck out 10 while escaping a few jams, stranding six runners in scoring position.

With the Falcons ahead 6-0 in the sixth inning, West Chicago finally got to DeAno when Kevin Peterson blasted a 3-run homer over the right-field fence. Mike Coduto picked up his first save of the season by pitching a scoreless seventh.

"They're a good team, obviously you can't make mistakes against them," said West Chicago coach Dan McCarthy. "We just squandered some opportunities and didn't score in any of those innings where we had chances. Against a good team like that, you've got to take advantage."

A pair of wild pitches allowed Wheaton North to take a 2-0 first-inning lead. Mike Small's RBI single made it 3-0 in the second and then Coduto, Justin Swider and DeAno added run-scoring singles through the middle innings to build the 6-0 lead.

Tyler Christ had a solid game leading off for West Chicago, going 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles. Everyone in the Falcons' lineup had a hit, including 2 hits by Small, Swider, Coduto and Jeff Schalk.

The Falcons look to extend their program-record winning streak in Saturday's DVC doubleheader at home against West Aurora.

"It starts on the mound," said Falcons coach Dan Schoessling. "But we've done other things well, too, that have enabled us to get to this point. We've played really good defense, we've gotten some really big hits. Most of all we've just done a nice job keeping our focus each day."

BOX SCORE

Wheaton North 6, West Chicago 3

Wheaton North 210 111 0 -6-13-3

West Chicago 000 003 0 -3-6-1

2B: WN: Small, Schalk. WC: Christ 2, Robbins.

HR: WC: Peterson. WP: DeAno (4-0) LP: Jacques (0-3); SV: Coduto (1).