Glenbard North nips Batavia in 10

With daylight fleeting and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning, Glenbard North’s Brandon Clark was simply looking to put the ball in play.

Clark did just that, as his hard-hit grounder to the left side of Batavia’s pulled-in infield caromed off the glove of third baseman Nick Beltrano, allowing Tyler Schwichtenberg to race across with the game-winning run during the Panthers’ 6-5, come-from-behind triumph Monday in Carol Stream.

“With one out and bases loaded, the only thing you can do is make contact,” said Clark, who has hit 4 home runs in the Panthers’ first 7 games. “I’m just trying to hit it as hard as I can in that situation. I got a pitch that I thought I could hit.”

Clark’s infield hit capped the Panthers’ 2-run rally that began with Anthony Keeler’s leadoff triple off junior right-hander Steven Patterson (0-1).

Keeler scored the tying run on a throwing error before Mark Ng singled. Another throwing error on Schwichtenberg’s sacrifice bunt led to Ng getting thrown out at the plate trying to slide across with the game-winning run.

With Schwichtenberg taking third on the play, Bulldogs coach Matt Holm played the percentages, issuing intentional walks to Jake Kline and Evin Natick and setting the stage for Clark’s heroics.

“Clark’s a big kid but he’s a double play potential,” said Holm. “We were thinking if we could get a hard groundball, we could get out of that. We got the hard groundball – we just didn’t make the play on it.”

“Unfortunately for them, they were in a situation where they had to walk the bases loaded,” said Panthers coach Rich Smelko. “Luckily for us, Brandon (Clark) was up because he’s one of our better hitters. It was a good situation for us.”

Glenbard North (5-2) forced extra innings by scoring 2 runs in the bottom of the seventh on RBI singles from Clark and Ryan Gallagher.

“We’ve had a couple of these come-from-behind games so far,” said Clark. “We’ve had both wins and losses so we know what it takes to get the win.”

Left-hander Shawn Dalke (1-2), the Panthers’ fifth pitcher on the day, recorded the win despite allowing Patterson’s RBI single in the top half of the 10th.

Batavia (2-2), which finished with 10 hits, highlighted by Danny Seiton’s 2-run home run in the fifth, also left 12 runners on base.

“It was a tough loss,” said Holm, whose team begins Upstate Eight Conference action today against Metea Valley. “We had a lot of chances and we didn’t finish. We couldn’t get that last out.”

Another positive was provided by junior reliever Austin Higgins, who came on in the fifth to escape a first-and-third jam and went on to pitch 4 innings.

“Austin really battled and did a nice job for us,” said Holm. “I expected him to get in a 1-inning workout today. It doesn’t actually put us in a bad situation.”