Tickle hits Glenbard South in the funny bone

Kaneland's baseball team more than recovered from a lost day at the plate.

Twenty-four hours after being at the wrong end of a 1-hitter against Glenbard South, the Knights bounced back in a big way by beating the Raiders 11-4 in Thursday's Western Sun Conference matchup.

Kaneland (8-8, 2-4), which struck out 13 times in Wednesday's 1-0 loss to the Raiders (10-5, 5-1), scored in five innings on Thursday while smacking eight extra-base hits, including home runs by Dave Dudzinski and complete-game winning pitcher Jake Tickle.

"Today we got the bats off our shoulders and did some good things at the plate," said Kaneland coach Brian Aversa. "Our guys were swinging the bat and making things happen. We were pretty frustrated striking out as many times as we did yesterday, so it was good to see us have some success."

A 1-0 lead after an inning grew to 4-0 in the fourth when Bobby Thorson singled home a run and Corey Landers doubled in 2 runs. The Knights kept tacking on runs to extend the lead, including a 4-run fourth inning when consecutive RBI doubles by Jake Fiedler and Joe Camiliere led to Tickle's 2-run homer.

Tickle improved to 4-0 while scattering 5 hits, striking out nine, walking three and hitting a batter. His fastball-curveball combination did a nice job keeping the Raiders off balance.

"When they started getting used to my fastball, I started throwing curveballs for strikes to start them off," Tickle said. "Then I'd throw in the fastball to catch them off guard. But my curveball was really working today,"

Glenbard South narrowed the gap to 8-3 in the bottom of the fifth when Dylan Milkent blasted a 2-run homer and Mike Meath drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Kaneland, however, answered with Dudzinski's 2-run homer in the sixth.

Drew Finch's second double of the game drove in the Knights' 11th run in the seventh. Meath singled in Glenbard South's fourth run in the bottom of the seventh, but the Raiders could pull no closer after stranding runners on first and third to end the game.

"We struggled on the mound today," said Glenbard South coach Mike Riley, who used four pitchers. "Our defense was fine, but hitting we didn't do a very good job with the curveball and we didn't pitch very well."