Baseball: Fremd’s lefty duo stymies Huntley
Fremd’s Jack Crihfield and Rob Seifert helped Fremd mow down Huntley, 5-3, Tuesday in Palatine.
Crihfield and Seifert combined for 15 strikeouts as the Vikings also got some timely hitting to remain unbeaten in this second week of the regular season.
“Jack did great, and Robby came in and did and a terrific job in relief,” Fremd coach Chris Piggott said. “We wanted to make sure we did not get behind in the count and attacking hitters because we know that if we start putting guys on base, they can take advantage of that.”
Crihfield, who is a senior lefthander and is committed to play at Florida Southern next season, fanned 9 in five innings. He allowed all three Huntley runs, two of which were earned.
“It was really fun,” Crihfield said. “I was using my fastball to get ahead in the count and the curveball late to finish them. I think our pitching is really deep along with our hitters. We have good guys who had timely hits and that helps if you are a pitcher.”
Seifert made his second appearance of the young season and picked up his second save by allowing a hit to the first batter he faced and then striking out the next six.
“It is really fun coming out here and pitching once a week,” said Seifert, who is also a lefty and is a sophomore. “I get to show what I got.”
Fremd (3-0) got off to a great start in the bottom of the first as the Vikings scored twice.
Cooper Nelson walked and then went to second on a terrific bunt by Vinny Panzino. Nelson scored on a sharp single to center by Johhny O’Brien. After a balk moved O’Brien to second, Will Graba drove him in with a two-out single.
Fremd added another run in the next inning. Lucas Phillip singled, and he later scored on a two-out double down the left-field line by Nelson to make it 3-0.
Huntley (1-3), which has lost its three games by a total of five runs, then got some timely hitting of its own in the fourth.
With two outs, Dylan Visvadra singled to left. Alex Behles and Drew Borkowski each doubled as the Red Raiders cut the lead to 3-2.
Fremd got both runs back in its half of the fourth.
Dennis Bond walked and stole second with two outs. Tyler Schader followed with a double to score Bond. He would then score on Nelson’s single to left-center to make it 5-2.
“We preach selflessness at the plate and just doing your job,” said Nelson, who had two hits, two RBI and a run scored. “We did that in the first inning and got our pitcher a little cushion to work with and everything builds off of that.”
Piggott loved his team’s timely hitting.
“We have got off to a pretty good start offensively early in the year and that is good,” Piggot said.
Huntley was able to get a run back in the fifth when Ryan Dabe doubled with two outs and then scored on a error. But the strikeouts, which included five looking, really hurt, said Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski.
“Their lefties did a real nice job,” Jakubowksi said. “We just did not make proper adjustments. We need to do a better job of going the other way with them.”