Eck, St. Charles East slow down Batavia
Coach Len Asquini called Tuesday a new start for St. Charles East - and the Saints couldn't have responded any better.
Taking a 4-game losing streak on the road to play Upstate Eight Conference River Division power Batavia, the Saints snapped that skid in impressive fashion, riding the left arm of Adam Eck and some timely hitting for a 3-1 win.
"We started over today," Asquini said. "They took that and ran with it. We've been very close to having a complete game and today we got it. I'm really happy for the kids. This is what we've been looking for."
Trailing 3-1 going to the bottom of the seventh, Batavia (9-2, 5-1-1) made St. Charles East (8-5, 4-3) earn every last out.
Dino Simoncelli drew a one-out walk, Andrew Siegler singled and Reagan McReynolds was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Asquini pulled Eck (2-0), who struck out three and allowed just 5 hits in his 6 1/3 innings. Mick Vyzral got Steven Busby swinging for the second out, which brought up Laren Eustace.
The Indiana-bound senior already had a triple and a single in his three at-bats to account for Batavia's lone run, but after Eustace fouled off three straight pitches Vyzral got him to bounce to second for the final out.
"We were trying hard not to see that guy," Asquini said. "It happened and we went after it and we got the best of them today.
"Eck was super on the mound. And Mick came in a pretty tense situation and kept his composure and got their best hitter out."
The Saints opened the scoring in the second inning. Austin Regelbrugge and Jake Asquini singled. Simoncelli looked to quiet the rally by throwing out Asquini trying to steal second, but the Saints scored anyway a moment later on a passed ball.
Batavia tied the game in the third when Eustace tripled and scored on Jeremy Schoessling's groundout. Saints center fielder Brannon Barry made sure the inning didn't get any bigger with a diving catch to take a hit away from Micah Coffey.
The Saints took the lead for good in the fourth. Ben Smith led off with a single, and pinch runner Kevin Assoian scored on a clutch two-out single from Alex Abate.
St. Charles East scored those two runs off Batavia starter Evan Acosta, who opened the game by striking out the side in the first inning on 13 pitches. He finished with 7 strikeouts in 6 innings.
"He's very good," Asquini said. "We thought we'd be in for a long day after that first inning but the kids made a great adjustment at the plate and started pushing the ball a little bit. That was big for us."
Eck matched Acosta. He only allowed 3 baserunners from the second through sixth innings, and his catcher Adam Rojas erased one with a caught stealing.
"I just let my defense work," Eck said. "They pulled through. I finally started to find my spots and the team had a lot of energy so that definitely helped out."
Eck said getting Batavia to chase his curve out of the zone was one of the key's to his performance, and Bulldog coach Matt Holm agreed.
"We didn't hit very well against Eck," Holm said. "We made mistakes at the plate as well. He pitched a fantastic game. Patience is the issue. You have to sit back when a guy is mixing it like that and we weren't very patient today."
St. Charles East plated an insurance run in the seventh, a rally aided by a Batavia error. Mike Settle singled and eventually reached third only to be thrown out at home by Bulldog second baseman Schessling. Smith was able to get the third run in on an infield single that Batavia again didn't field cleanly.
"Against a good solid coached program like Len is always going to have, you can't have mistakes," Holm said. "In a series like this whoever makes the most mistakes is not going to win the game."
Smith and Regelbrugge both had 2 hits for the Saints while Eustace and Siegler did the same for Batavia.