Baseball: Eickelman, Huntley use small ball to beat Prairie Ridge
Bunting for a hit. Bunting to sacrifice.
Drag bunt. Push bunt. Safety squeeze. Suicide squeeze.
Does it really matter? All that matters to Huntley middle infielder Aiden Eickelman is the result.
Friday, Eickelman liked the result. So did Huntley.
See ball. Bunt ball.
The Red Raiders bunted four times for a hit, executed two sacrifice bunts and even added two sacrifice flies, all contributing to a 9-0 win over host Prairie Ridge in a Fox Valley Conference baseball showdown in cold, cloudy, rainy, sleety Crystal Lake.
Eickelman, batting in the No. 2 spot, had two bunt hits and a sacrifice fly.
“I’m just trying to get it down,” Eickelman said of a first-inning bunt that he placed about 15 feet in front of home plate with Kyle Ziebell on second base. “It doesn’t really matter what happens with me. It matters that I get him over and I do my job. That goes for all of us. We got our jobs done today. We did our thing, and it worked out in our favor.”
Sean Dabe, meanwhile, did his job, Eickelman noted.
Dabe, the veteran righty, continued his excellent season by throwing six innings of three-hit ball, as Huntley (18-4, 9-3 FVC) avenged its 6-5 loss from Wednesday.
“He’s thrown the ball extremely well for us,” Raiders coach Andy Jakubowski said.
Dabe’s 84-pitch effort included six strikeouts, and the junior didn’t walk anyone.
“Curveball was really on today,” Dabe said. “That mound was brutal, though. Before the rain, I was doing my thing out there. Then once that rain hit [about the fifth inning], it was a lot more difficult. I pitched for contact, slowed it down a little bit, didn’t do too much. I just tried to let my defense play for me and really not try to go all-out and strike out everyone like I normally try to do.”
Huntley gave Dabe a three-run cushion in the top of the first, which started with Wolves pitcher Jack Dahlem throwing wildly to first base on a comebacker off the bat of Ziebell, who ended up on second base.
Dahlem allowed three runs in the first and three again in the fifth, which included two more errors, but he allowed little hard contact.
The senior right-hander gave up six runs but only one earned in five innings.
“Conditions were a little bit rough,” Dahlem said. “I think Huntley did a great job of just putting it in play, making us try to make a play. That was all you could really do. The ball wasn’t really going anywhere. It was definitely rough out there on the mound. Just had to try your best to fill [the strike zone] up and throw strikes.”
Huntley bunted six times, and every one was executed successfully.
“Our situational hitting was good today,” Jakubowski said. “We took advantage of conditions. The grass is really thick. It’s a good bunting surface, and we made [Prairie Ridge] try to defend it. We were fortunate enough on some occasions, and that put us in a good position to score runs.”
Bunting is something Eickelman does well. That helps explain why Jakubowski, who called Eickelman a “sparkplug” who plays the game hard, likes him in the No. 2 hole.
“I work on it,” Eickelman, who started at shortstop. said of bunting. “There’s always something to work on with it, and I always do.”
Prairie Ridge (15-5, 8-4) got singles from Dahlem, Maddon McKim and Jack Hermann.
Huntley’s first inning included an RBI groundout by Gavin Rettberg and a fielder’s-choice RBI by Tommy Gasner. Eickelman and Brady Klepfer had back-to-back bunt singles earlier in the inning.
Leo Bianchin delivered a sacrifice fly in the three-run fifth. The Raiders’ bottom of the order produced too, as No. 8 hitter Diego Herrera doubled twice, while No. 9 hitter Joey Lengle had a sacrifice bunt and a bunt single. Rettberg also had a sacrifice bunt.
“We’re just going to keep bunting until they can make something happen,” Dabe said. “Unfortunately for PR, that happened today. This weather probably didn’t help them at all. It was a bunt fest, and it worked out for us.”