Naperville Central able to turn focus back to baseball

At the end of a week filled with sad distraction, Naperville Central's baseball team brimmed with motivated focus.

A day after funeral services for hall of fame pitching coach Phil Lawler, the Redhawks dominated Saturday's cross-town doubleheader at Naperville North by rolling to 11-1 and 9-3 victories and solidifying their spot atop the DuPage Valley Conference standings.

"It's an awesome rivalry, it's a lot of fun to play in," said Redhawks senior Shane Conlon. "There's a lot of respect in these games, and we just came out and took it to them."

Lawler, who passed away at the age of 60 on April 23, was honored before the game with a moment of silence. The Redhawks then began a blistering day at the plate by scoring 2 runs on Bobby Czarnowski's double in the top of the first inning.

They finished the day with 20 runs on 22 hits, winning the opener in six innings.

"We had a lot of good at-bats today," said Redhawks senior Marc Mantucca, who went 3-for-7 with 2 doubles, a Game 2 home run and 5 RBI on the day. "We know anyone on this team can drive in runs and play good baseball."

Both teams lined up their aces to pitch on Saturday, and the Naperville Central (20-2, 11-0) lefty tandem of Dan Ludwig (4-0) and Conlon (5-0) came through against Kyle Klosak (4-2) and Charlie White (3-1).

"I felt real, real good coming over," said Redhawks coach Bill Seiple, whose team holds a two-game lead over Wheaton North and a three-game lead over the Huskies. "When we're throwing out two lefties, we're pretty good."

Naperville Central goes for the series sweep Monday at North Central College, while Naperville North looks to recover from having its 10-game winning streak snapped.

"We've been playing well, but it's baseball and you can't win them all," White said. "We had a rough day, they had a really good day. We'll get back after it on Monday."

Close scores widened in the fifth and sixth innings of both games, starting with a 7-run fifth-inning burst by the Redhawks in the opener that put them ahead 9-1. Paul Bloodgood's third-inning RBI single had narrowed the deficit to 2-1.

Naperville North (18-4, 8-3) led 1-0 heading to the fifth inning of Game 2, but sparked by Matt Cmiel's 2-run triple Naperville Central pulled ahead with 3 runs in the fifth inning. Tallying 6 runs in the sixth, the Redhawks added even more distance.

Cmiel, the University of Illinois-Springfield recruit who drove in 3 runs, and Kansas State-bound Conlon had 2 hits in each game. Mariano Long and Jon Ryan, whose RBI double gave the Huskies the 1-0 lead in the second game, had 3 hits on the day.

"We did not play well," said Huskies coach Carl Hunckler. "Our pitchers were not as sharp as we would have loved to see, and our offense was nonexistent. They were the better team."