Streamwood tops Bartlett, stays unbeaten

Some old friends in the Upstate Eight Conference won’t get together like they used to due to the advent of the two-division format.

The Streamwood and Bartlett baseball teams, neighboring District U-46 rivals who used to play each other three times a season, now only get one shot to take bragging rights from one another.

The Sabres can gloat for a full calendar year after holding off the charging Hawks in the late innings for a 5-4 UEC crossover victory in Streamwood Saturday. The win ran Streamwood’s record to 9-0 overall, 3-0 in league play.

“It’s our rival,” said winning Streamwood pitcher Dalton Lundeen (3-0). “It’s one of the teams you wait to beat all year. We had to win this one.”

The Sabres scored 4 runs in the fourth inning to overcome a 2-1 deficit, and reliever Richie Gorski earned his first save by notching key strikeouts that stranded the potential tying run at second base in both the sixth and seventh innings.

Bartlett (3-7, 0-3) scored a single run in the fifth inning on Joey Miceli’s RBI double and pulled within 5-4 in the sixth when Dan Gallanis led off with a walk and scored on a two-out double by John Fleming.

Fleming was the last batter Lundeen faced. The junior lefty was lifted in favor of Gorski with two outs in the sixth after allowing 4 earned runs on 6 hits with 4 walks and 7 strikeouts.

With Fleming at second representing the tying run, Gorski came in to face speedy Bartlett leadoff man Ryan Yore, who had already tripled, walked twice and scored 2 runs.

“It would have been (Lundeen’s) fourth time through the order, so we needed to change the look,” Streamwood coach Steve Diversey said. “(Yore) led off the game with a massive triple, so we weren’t going to give him a chance to tie it.”

Gorski won the battle by setting Yore up with an outside fastball, then freezing him on the next pitch with a fastball on the inside corner for a called third strike.

Gorski retired the first two hitters he faced in the seventh, helped by a diving grab by shortstop Nate Pearson on a groundball off the bat of David Mutter.

Tyler Farina drew a two-out walk and stole second, but Gorski ended the game by striking out pinch hitter Kyle Lipelt swinging at a fastball on the outside edge.

“We had a lot of positive things,” Bartlett coach Chris Pemberton said. “Unfortunately, they were overshadowed by some small mistakes: not getting the ball in play when we had runners in scoring position, getting flat in the middle innings and making mistakes in the field that they capitalized on.”

The Hawks committed 2 errors in the game, the second of which proved costly in Streamwood’s 4-run fourth. A possible double-play grounder was booted by the shortstop with one out. The Sabres scored twice more after the error on RBI basehits by Bobby Post and Nick Pryor.

“We had high expectations, but to still be undefeated after playing some good teams means we’re rolling,” said Pearson, who accounted for 3 of Streamwood’s 9 stolen bases. “ We just have to stay humble and stay at it.”