Larkin, Dundee-Crown fit to be tied

From a hitter's standpoint, it was too good to end in a tie.

The Larkin and Dundee-Crown baseball teams combined Friday to produce 18 runs and 21 hits, but darkness won out as the nonconference game in Elgin was called after eight innings with the score knotted at 9.

Dundee-Crown (1-0-1) got the jump on Larkin (0-1-1) in the rematch of last year's regional title game (won by Larkin) with 5 runs in the first inning and a solo home run to lead off the third by cleanup hitter Nick Spagnola.

The Chargers led 7-2 in the bottom of the fifth, when the Royals roared back with 5 runs on 5 hits to knock D-C starting pitcher Chris Sailor out of the game. The Larkin comeback was highlighted by a 2-run double by No. 3 hitter Scott Harm (2-for-5, 3B), and a game-tying 2-run double to the right-field wall by junior catcher Victor Saldana.

"My team really motivated me to try to get a hit," Saldana said. "It's too bad it ended in a tie, but it was a fun game."

The fun continued in the top of the sixth. Dundee-Crown, which scored 12 runs in its season-opening win over Wheeling on Thursday, struck again with 2 runs to take a 9-7 lead. Junior Chris Lamprecht led off with a single and senior Zach Vodicka followed with a double.

Larkin coach Matt Esterino elected to have right-handed reliever Jake McCleary intentionally walk left-handed hitting Jake Romano to load the bases with no outs for junior outfielder Jimmy Griffin. Griffin, who entered the game in the fourth inning in place of injured left fielder Scott Nowicke (thumb), delivered a basehit up the middle to score a pair.

"My first at-bat I chased a pitch," Griffin said of a fourth-inning strikeout. "I shortened up my swing, put it in play and good things happened."

McCleary rebounded with a strikeout and 2 ground outs to strand runners at second and third, and the junior went on to pitch scoreless seventh and eighth innings.

Trailing once again, Larkin's bats didn't quit. The Royals responded with an unearned run in the sixth and tied the game in the seventh on a deep sacrifice fly to center by Saldana (2 doubles, 3 RBI). Senior Alex Wahl scored the tying run standing up after he led the inning off with a double and advanced to third on Trevor Whitehead's groundball to first base.

With daylight growing scarce in the eighth, the Royals put the winning run at second base with two outs for Harm, who had already tripled and doubled. The senior third baseman smacked a line drive to center field, but D-C's Jake Romano made the catch to conclude the game in a draw.

"I crushed it," said Harm. "I could still see that little white baseball, and that's all I had to see. I just wanted to make contact and work the count. That's what we did all day."

The Chargers learned a lesson after letting a 6-run lead evaporate. "We learned you can't run out to a lead and get comfortable," D-C coach Jon Sawyer said. "Keep the pedal to the metal."