Baseball: Fremd's quick start does in South Elgin

A passing cold front dropped the temperature at Wheeling's Heritage Park from an afternoon high of 52 degrees to 39 and breezy at first pitch of Tuesday's season opener between the South Elgin and Fremd baseball teams.

While many fans in attendance bowed out by the middle innings to seek warmer environs, the hearty Vikings thrived in the cold-weather battle like their nordic warrior namesakes.

With a cool breeze in the face of batters, Fremd jumped on South Elgin for 4 first-inning runs, added a run in the fifth and 3 more in the sixth to prevail 8-2 in a nonconference tilt that was moved to an all-turf surface.

Fremd (1-0) collected 8 hits compared to 6 for South Elgin (0-1), and the Vikings played errorless defense.

"We talk a lot about just having quality at-bats, competing at the plate, competing on the mound, going after hitters," Fremd coach Chris Piggot said. "That was our focus today, just to have really good at-bats. We started out well in the first inning. That was huge to get a lead against a good team like that."

Batting against South Elgin starting pitcher Dylan Wells in the top of the first, Fremd scored 4 earned runs on 3 triples. Leadoff man Alec Honickel singled and scored one out later on Tommy Josten's triple. After Will McCabe drew a walk, Eric Bennes smacked a 1-1 pitch to the center-field wall for 2 RBI and a 3-0 lead. Zach Goodman's triple made it 4-0.

"Our pitcher left a few over the plate and they took advantage of it," South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. "We did come back with opportunities to score some runs."

South Elgin got a run back in the fourth inning when Nate Gomez led off with a single and later scored from third on a one-out groundball from Nathan Smith.

However, the Storm gave that run right back in the top of the fifth by committing 3 of their 4 errors.

"First game, first-time jitters, really the first time on a field," Kating said. "A few more errors than we wanted to make, but I'm chalking it up to the first game. Hopefully, we'll tighten things up and improve."

South Elgin cut the deficit to 5-2 in the fifth. A Fremd reliever walked the first two hitters of the inning. That set the state for Kevin Barry's RBI single to right field.

However, the Vikings scored 3 sixth-inning insurance runs, helped by a South Elgin throwing error.

Bennes, Fremd's starting pitcher, held the Storm to an earned run on 4 hits and a walk while striking out 3. Reliever Victor Fuji issued a walk and struck out 3 in 2⅓ hitless innings.