Dundee-Crown holds on at Huntley
The Dundee-Crown baseball team boosted its confidence by winning a possible playoff preview at Huntley Saturday morning.
The visiting Chargers, seeded No. 2 in the upcoming Class 4A Huntley regional, knocked off the top-seeded Red Raiders 8-6 on the very field where the title game will take place in two weeks.
Dundee-Crown leadoff hitter Scott Nowicke set the tone by opening the game with a solo home run off Huntley starting pitcher Justin Gundlach (6-2), Corey Volberding launched a 2-run shot in the third inning and the Chargers scored 3 runs in the fourth to take a commanding 6-1 lead in support of right-hander Tyler Gross (3-3).
“I had 2 strikes on me and I had to protect,” Volberding said of his home run swing. “I saw one I liked and took a hack at it and good things happened.”
Dundee-Crown moved ahead 6-1 in the fourth, thanks to run-scoring basehits by Nowicke and junior Jake Romano and Steve Schwartz’s RBI double. They added 2 more runs in the fifth on a single by Kirk Hanselmann and a run-scoring fielder’s choice for Chris Lamprecht.
They needed every bit of that cushion.
Huntley (19-6, 14-4), in a desperate effort to stave off its fourth straight loss, scored single runs in the third, fourth, sixth and seventh innings and tallied twice in the fifth.
However, the seventh-inning rally fell short when D-C reliever Jordan Kalous slammed the door after a rocky start. He gave up 4 straight hits but bounced back to strike out pinch hitter Mark Merevick with the tying runs at first and second. He then induced a game-ending grounder to Volberding at second base to seal it.
The win improved Dundee-Crown to 18-12 overall, 15-7 in the Fox Valley Conference.
“We’ve been up and down, but I definitely think we’re headed in the right direction,” said Kalous, who earned his second save.
Both teams amassed 12 hits, but defense was the difference. Dundee-Crown made three outstanding plays in the field: a diving catch in center field by Romano, a diving play at second by Volberding, and a sliding catch of a foul pop by third baseman Nick Spagnola.
Conversely, Huntley committed 4 errors, a common theme throughout its losing streak, which reached five later Saturday when the Red Raiders committed 4 more errors in an 11-5 loss to Cary-Grove.
“We’re just not playing very good baseball and we’re specifically not playing very well defensively,” Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski said after losing to the Chargers. “We’ve been averaging 3 errors or more a game. That’s what has killed us.”