Baseball: Kaneland completes sweep of Sycamore
Sycamore entered its 3-game series with Kaneland this week in first place in the Northern Illinois Big XII East.
Three games later, the Spartans have seen enough of the Knights ... and especially Preston Havis.
Havis and Kaneland played its third straight solid game Thursday on their home field. Havis went 3-for-3 with 3 RBI in a 9-3 win, giving him 6 hits in the series.
Not bad for the Knights' No. 9 hitter.
"Their nine hitter is killing us," Sycamore coach Jason Cavanaugh said. "He gets a base hit to right field every time. You show me a team with a nine hitter getting on base as frequently as that kid is I'll show you a team that's scoring a bunch of runs."
That's exactly what Kaneland (8-6, 4-1) did, scoring 27 runs in the 3-game sweep.
Havis gave the Knights a 1-0 lead in the second with a single up the middle to score Jacob Violett who also had gone up the middle for a hit, stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch.
Havis stroked a leadoff double in the fourth and again went to right field for a 2-run single in the fifth.
"Nine hitter is a nice spot to be in," Havis said. "You see a lot of fastballs. I was seeing the ball really well."
The Knights broke the game open with a 4-run third inning, a rally that started with 2 outs and nobody on base. Will Ring and Matt Rosko singled, and Jack Marshall and Luke Calabrese walked.
Violett lofted a high fly to deep right that the Spartans couldn't catch near the fence, and 3 runs scored on the triple for a 5-0 lead.
"It's hard to play out there," Cavanaugh said. "There's a lot of water out there. Everything drains in that corner. It just got up in the wind a little bit and he was just drifting with it and misplayed it a little. It just seems to happen at the wrong times for us. When you get in a little losing streak every mistake is magnified. It was a big turning point in the game."
Sycamore (11-8, 4-5) didn't get much going against Knights starter Noah Jones, who allowed 1 run while scattering 6 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings to improve to 2-0 before Ryan David tossed the final 2 innings.
"We expect that out of Noah," Knights coach Brian Aversa said. "He's going to let the defense work. He's not going to strike out a bunch of guys. We just have to make plays and we did. He did a great job for 5 innings. We haven't been playing like that this year and finally this series is one of those turning points."
Violett joined Havis with 3 hits Thursday, driving in 4 runs. The Knights walked 9 times including 3 by leadoff hitter Jake Marczuk.
"We played really well the entire time," Havis said. "Everyone stepped up. It was a good team series win. The hitting was finally there. We hit well the entire series. It gives us a huge boost."