Baseball: Kosmetatos, St. Francis shut out IC Catholic

Nick Kosmetatos pounded the strike zone with four pitches.

Over and over again.

The Butler-bound senior pitcher struck out 11 in St. Francis' 4-0 baseball victory over IC Catholic Prep in Elmhurst. Ten of the strikeouts were looking, and Kosmetatos also drove in Thursday's first run with a first-inning RBI double.

All 4 runs, in fact, came in the top of the first as the Spartans spotted the hard-throwing right-hander a 4-0 lead before he even took the mound.

"It's always a confidence-booster when you're able to go out there with a lead," Kosmetatos said. "You get momentum from that. I'm able to settle in and do what I do: pitch strikes. Just hitting spots. That's what we preach."

St. Francis (8-2) started the game with four straight hits, including Michael Cascella's RBI triple and Bennett Eltoft's run-scoring single. Trevor Hicks drove in the fourth run with a single.

IC Catholic Prep starter Dave Sykora settled down after that, and Kevin Cooke closed the game with 4 scoreless innings of relief. The Knights (7-8), though, couldn't sustain any offense against Kosmetatos. In addition to the 11 strikeouts, he also coaxed eight groundball outs from an errorless defense.

"We have to make the adjustments out there," said IC Catholic Prep coach Frank DeAngelis. "That was the only negative we took from today. Overall, yes, it's a loss, but we can take away a lot of positives from this. It was a pretty clean game for us."

Eltoft went 3-for-3 for St. Francis. Chris Vitek went 2-for-3 for IC Catholic Prep, which stranded five runners in scoring position.

"We did a great job finding barrels in the first inning," said St. Francis coach Nick Hall. "Any time you can get a couple runs for Kos, you know you're in good shape."

Twitter: @kevin_schmit