Baseball: Eventually, Lake Forest defeats Libertyville

It was better late than never for the Lake Forest baseball team.

The Scouts were a bit late to Tuesday's North Suburban Conference game at Libertyville, which was scheduled for a 4:30 p.m. start. Their bus was not on time to pick them up from school. Not even close.

"It didn't even show up until about 4 o'clock," Lake Forest coach Ray Del Fava said of the tardy bus. "We were sitting there at the school, just waiting."

That pushed the start of the game back about 45 minutes.

Lake Forest, perhaps a bit out of synch, got off to a slow start. But the Scouts somehow overcame a 5-run deficit after 2 innings and rallied to get a 6-5 victory over host Libertyville.

The Scouts' win denied Libertyville, tied for first place with Stevenson in the NSC Lake Division standings heading into the game, an opportunity to play in Thursday's conference championship game.

Just 24 hours earlier, Libertyville had knocked Lake Forest out of contention for the title game by getting a win in Lake Forest on Monday.

"Since we lost to them yesterday, our mentality was 'Don't let them win today,'" Lake Forest right fielder Brad Czerniejewsk said of the payback for Libertyville. "We had a sense of pride today."

The Scouts also had their quick wheels working in their favor. They worked the base paths masterfully, using their impressive team speed to rack up 8 stolen bases.

With only 6 hits on the day, Lake Forest still managed to get into scoring position frequently because of its aggressive base-running.

Czerniejewsk had 3 stolen bases himself and scored 2 runs. He also finished with 2 hits.

"We like to be aggressive on the bases," Czerniejewsk said. "We definitely took advantage today. That really helped us win the game. I've been working on running for a while now and it helped me today."

It also helped Lake Forest to have starting pitcher Cal Coughlin, a Texas Christian recruit, settle down. He gave up all 5 runs, along with 6 hits and 3 walks in those first two innings.

After that, he allowed only 3 Libertyville hits. He got the win by going the distance.

"We know that Cal is a really good pitcher and that he throws hard and is going to hit his spots," said Libertyville left fielder Brian Murphy, who had 2 hits. "We knew that we had to come out with intensity. And we did. But once he (Coughlin) found a groove, we kind of slowed down for a few innings.

"You're facing a Division I pitcher and he ultimately beat us."

Libertyville had runners on first and third with just one out in the bottom of the seventh inning, but couldn't push in any runs to either tie the score or take a lead.

"I'm proud of our kids," Libertyville coach Sean Ferrell said. "They came out with a lot of energy I told the kids after the game that they have nothing to be ashamed of. I told them that if we can continue that in the state tournament, we can do positive things"

With the scored tied at 5-5, Lake Forest began the top of the seventh inning with a single from Czerniejewsk. He then made it to second on a stolen base and then scored when Jason Cast ripped a single to left field for what proved to be the winning run.

"Once we saw Cal (Coughlin) being Cal and throwing up zeroes, it kind of relaxed us a little bit," Del Fava said. "We were able to close the gap and then Jason (Cast) coming up with that huge hit in the seventh is what we needed."

Coughlin moved his record on the mound to 5-3.

For Libertyville, which drops to 19-10-1, Daniel Marks added 2 hits and an RBI and Brant Kym had 2 hits.