Baseball: Big fourth fires up Carmel at Palatine

Carmel Catholic's strange trip turned into a winner Thursday in Palatine.

The Corsairs nearly batted around twice in the fourth inning, scoring 11 runs to help them hurdle past Palatine 12-5 in a game called after 5 innings due to darkness.

"That was a crazy inning," said Carmel coach Bill Taylor, whose team sent 17 players to the plate that inning. "But that is baseball. You never know what can happen out there. Early in the game it looked like we could not do anything right. The next thing you know, things fell our way."

Earlier this week, the Corsairs (1-1) were no-hit. And they were struggling in the first three innings on Thursday.

But all of that turned 180 degrees, and quickly.

Thanks to an error and a walk, Carmel had runners on first and second with two outs, when the game completely swung in their direction. And when the smoke cleared, the Corsairs had plated 11 runs thanks to 6 walks, 2 errors, 3 hit batters and just 2 hits.

"That was insane," said Carmel's Tony Baumgart, who had a bases-loaded double that scored 3 runs. "It was difficult watching because in our first game we really didn't get the bats going. It was nice to break loose today."

Palatine coach Paul Belo, whose team had been leading 4-1, was stunned by the way the game changed.

"Up to that point, things were going real well," Belo said. "We were having some quality at-bats and doing some real good things.

"It is one of those things that when you turn around and say 'What happened?' But it is early in the season and our guys will bounce back from this."

Palatine (1-2) was stroking the ball quite well in the early innings, but failed to come up with a big hit when it needed one. The Pirates left the bases loaded in the first without scoring and got two runners on in the third, when they scored just one time.

Taylor said freshman pitcher Ben Wiegman settled down when it mattered.

"He made some big pitches when we needed them most," Taylor said. "It was a great learning lesson for him and should pay huge dividends when the season gets going."

Palatine scored 3 runs in the second inning on an RBI single by Jack Grochowski, who had 2 hits for the day and a two-run single by J.T. Streep, who also had 2 hits.

Baumgarter singled in the third to lead off the inning. He later scored on Joey Lake's RBI single.

Palatine upped its lead to 4-1 when Zach Oles, who reached on an error, scored as part of a double steal with John Weber, who had singled.

"At this time of year, you are always looking to see what you can improve on," Taylor said. "Any time we can learn and build as we move forward in the season it is a good thing."