Baseball: Wheaton North executes late for extra inning win over Wheaton Warrenville South

The ability to put the bat on the ball is magnified in tight games.

After squandering a pair of scoring opportunities in the sixth and seventh, Wheaton North (10-14, 4-7) broke through for a pair of runs in the eighth during its 5-3, extra-inning DuKane Conference victory over Wheaton Warrenville South (11-9-1, 4-7) Saturday afternoon.

With the bases loaded and two outs, Zander Zielinski’s groundball squirted through the Tigers’ infield for an error, allowing a pair of runs to score during the Falcons’ decisive eighth inning.

“Situationally, I was just trying to get the ball in play,” said Zielinski, who went 2 for 4 with an RBI. “Obviously, not exactly what I wanted to do but at that point with two strikes, I’ve got to make the defense make a play.”

“We always preach putting the ball in play and that last inning shows the importance of doing that,” said Falcons coach Dan Schoessling, whose team stranded 10 runners. “We had a real tough loss yesterday (3-1), so I’m proud of the way these guys bounced back.”

The Tigers, who received 4 solid innings from sophomore starting pitcher AJ Rogers (2 runs, 4 hits, 2 strikeouts), nearly won the game in the bottom of the seventh.

Eric Hecker led off with a single and advanced to second on Blake Snyder’s sacrifice bunt.

Following an intentional walk to Jacob Conover, senior center fielder Jacob Bergeron entered to pitch in relief of sophomore Rylan Johnson — with right fielder Zielinski moving to center and Johnson taking over in right.

Sophomore Caleb Mease laced a 1-out line drive to right, where Johnson caught the ball and fired it to first baseman Kyle for an inning-ending double play.

“That was a great play — a heads-up play,” said Schoessling. “A lot of players maybe wouldn’t see that.”

Playing the percentages while putting the force at second and third in order paid off for the Falcons.

“Jacob (Conover) was our conference player of the year last year, so it’s kind of pick your poison with those two hitters,” said the coach. “They’ve been really good, but it worked out this time.”

Bergeron earned the win with 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief, benefiting from a game-ending double play grounder to shortstop Jacob Johnson, who stepped on second and fired to newly inserted first baseman Nolan Gagliano, who stretched to make the catch.

“Jacob has really developed as a reliever for us,” Schoessling said of Bergeron. “He has been a nice addition to the pitching staff.”

The Falcons grabbed a 2-0 lead in the third on an errant pickoff attempt and Ryne Shroff’s sacrifice fly.

WW South tied it in the fourth on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Reece Franks and a throwing error following a wild pitch.

After the Falcons took a 3-2 lead on Zielinski’s RBI infield single in the fifth, the Tigers knotted it at 3-all in the bottom half of the frame on Clark Jensen’s RBI single, setting the stage for the extra-inning dramatics.

“Missed opportunities — offensively, defensively, on the bases,” said Tigers coach John Scherrman. “When we had the opportunity to drive in runs, we just didn’t today.”

Falcons starting pitcher Grant Kozlowski allowed a pair of runs in 4 innings with 2 strikeouts.

“We did a better job of doing the little things today,” said Schoessling.