Baseball: Hampshire stings Burlington Central

Hampshire pitcher Kevin Kardas said he felt the sting from Friday's cold east wind blowing straight in from right field at 15 mph.

If he felt any pressure about facing nonconference rival Burlington Central, he hid it well in a 9-2 home win.

Though Kardas' usual arsenal of pitches was reduced from four to fastball, slider, curveball - "I couldn't feel my fingers for a changeup," he said - the senior shrugged off a 44-degree "feels like" temperature and intermittent rain showers to stymie the Rockets.

Kardas improved to 2-5 by holding Central to an earned run on 4 hits in a 94-pitch outing spanning 6 innings. He struck out 5 and walked a pair.

"I just came out and threw strikes," said the right-hander, who induced 7 flyouts and 4 groundouts. "The wind's blowing straight in so I know guys are going to make plays. If they hit the ball in the air, I just watch our guys catch it."

Hampshire (9-11) supplied its starting pitcher with run support throughout to separate from Central (11-6). The Whip-Purs collected 11 hits, drew 3 walks and scored in five of six innings.

Against Central junior starting pitcher Tyler Perez (1-1), Hampshire scored a first-inning run to tie the game on junior Trevor Laffin's two-out bloop single.

The Whips added 2 third-inning runs on Michael Jachec's sacrifice fly and Laffin's RBI single. Consecutive bunt hits by Andrew Krajecki and Nick Sladek set the stage.

"We laid down two bunts in a row. I thought that was huge," Hampshire first-year coach Frank Simoncelli said. "On a day like today the ball's not going over the fence so let's make something happen."

Hampshire added a fourth-inning run to take a 4-1 lead on a double by Krajecki. The junior's extra-base hit was noteworthy considering a steady, almost-sideways rain was blowing into the right-handed batter's face at the time.

"Living in Illinois forever, you've been in that situation before," Krajecki said. "You can see the ball enough to know where you want to hit it, especially because there was a giant gap in the outfield due to a shift. Just keep your weight back and drive it to the opposite field."

Unlike Krajecki, Central hitters were unable to take the ball the other way against Kardas.

"He hit the outside corner with two strikes quite a bit and he did a good job of throwing breaking balls early in the count," Central coach Kyle Nelson said. "We just have to do a better job of fighting off those fastballs away and let him make a mistake for us. That's what we didn't do. We weren't aggressive with two strikes."

Laffin, a second-year varsity player, went 3-for-4 with 3 RBI to lead the Hampshire offense. "I just tried to make good contact with the barrel of the bat and, hopefully, find some grass somewhere," he said.

Three Central batters finished with 2 hits apiece: seniors Zach Schutta (RBI), Paddy McKermitt and junior Colton Wallace.