Baseball: Fremd rallies for hard-fought win over Rolling Meadows

Thanks to their ability to bounce back from an early deficit, Fremd would find its way back to earn a 3-2 home win over Rolling Meadows in a Mid-Suburban League crossover Friday evening in Palatine.

A successful sacrifice bunt by junior first baseman Santino Iacullo led to courtesy runner Jacob Sanchez scoring the winning run from second off an errant throw to first.

The winning bunt came straight from the mind of Vikings coach Chris Piggott to Iacullo before his at-bat.

"We always say that if we make bunts and put pressure on the other team they got to make plays and I told Santino to bunt for a hit and nobody expected it and (Sanchez) got in scoring position and we were fortunate enough to score on the errant throw," Piggott said.

Meadows (10-4) got on the scoreboard first during the top half of the second courtesy of a fielding error off the bat of third sacker Ben Kusumpa which allowed first baseman Tony Romanacce to score from second for a 1-0 lead.

That advantage went to 2-0 thanks to a sacrifice fly RBI by senior center fielder Joe Brigham that brought in sophomore right fielder Luke Schneider whose double started the inning off for the Mustangs.

The hosts (10-3) began their counter response with a solo big fly from Iacullo in their half of the fourth to halve the deficit to 2-1 as he connected off Mustangs starter Tyler Stankiewicz.

"The pitch was a change-up outside,“ Iacullo said. ”I was sitting on it the whole time because he likes throwing it and I got all of it."

An RBI sacrifice fly from senior third baseman Will Graba an inning later knotted things up at 2 to set up the dramatic final at-bats for both teams.

A fielder's choice by Fremd second baseman Luke Phillip to catcher Charlie Kalitowski gunned down Mustangs second baseman Quinn Hextall in the top of the seventh to squelch the potential lead run.

Then Sanchez took over on base for Graba prior to Iacullo's heroics.

"I got the sign from coach and I had to get it down because it was everything we needed to win," Iacullo said.

First-year Meadows coach Niko Klebosits spoke to his team afterwards of the value of the little things and the attention to detail.

"Perfect example in the seventh inning (was) Fremd with a delayed steal that caught us sleeping a little bit and then a guy (Iacullo) who went deep early in the game drops down a perfectly executed bunt,“ Klebosits said. ”They got what they wanted. I'm really proud of our guys' effort. It came down to the wire. Hats off to Fremd. They're a quality opponent."