Another win sounds good to Connealy, Grant
It's not Cody Connealy's preferred walk-up music.
After all, who really wants to listen to R&B artist IceJJFish's oddly popular, purposely bad, pitchy "On the Floor," no matter what they're doing? Just a few seconds of it might cause your ears to bleed.
"If you're a sophomore, they pick it for you," Connealy, the only sophomore on Grant's first-place baseball team, said of his walk-up music.
The bad news is, if Connealy keeps producing at the plate, he might have to have Grant's music operator keep playing it for him. It certainly didn't hurt him Wednesday, as he had the first 3-hit game of his varsity career in host Grant's 12-2 win over Antioch. Henry Kusiak's third hit of the day, an RBI single with two out in the sixth, ended the Northern Lake County Conference game.
"It gets me fired up and ready to hit," Connealy said of his walk-up music.
Grant continues to play inspired ball. The Bulldogs improved to 14-3 and 8-0 in the NLCC, pounding out 15 hits, including 5 doubles, and getting a quality pitching start from senior Austin Vass.
Connealy, who's been a trusty utility player as a third baseman and corner outfielder for the Bulldogs, sparked Grant with his bat in the second inning. He had a perfectly placed bunt single up the first-base line after Jimmy Taylor (1-for-3, double) led off the inning by reaching on an error. Joe Gorden followed with a bunt single down the third-base line to load the bases for ninth-place hitter Joey Califf, who doubled in the game's first 2 runs.
Val Cerna (single) and Kusiak (sacrifice fly) also had RBI in the 5-run frame against Sequoits righty Kyle Bukowy.
"I just wanted to get (the bunt) down and get the team going because we didn't have the best at-bats in the first inning," said Connealy (3-for-4), who singled again in the next two innings, with his fourth-inning hit driving in a run. "I was just trying to get the (sacrifice) bunt down."
Antioch made a pair of errors in the Grant second and five on the day.
"It was the same thing that bit us yesterday," said coach Chris Malec, whose Sequoits (7-6, 3-2) allowed 4 unearned runs in their 4-3 loss to Grant on Tuesday. "We seem to be the kings of 2-error innings. It's tough to overcome that."
Vass shut out Antioch on 2 hits through 5 innings before allowing a one-out, bad-hop, infield single to Austin Andrews in the sixth. Jack Gillespie followed with a single, and Bradley-commit Logan Delgado (2-for-3) doubled deep to center to score the Sequoits' first run and end Vass' day.
The right-hander received claps even from some Antioch fans as he left the mound. He struck out three and got 10 groundball outs in his 5⅓ innings.
"He was really good locating, throwing down in the zone," Grant coach Dave Behm said. "It's something we tell our pitchers all the time is, don't make it complicated. Throw strikes, keep it down, mix it up, and good things happen."
Danny Laughery also had 3 hits, including a double, for Grant. Kusiak and Cerna (2-for-4, double) each had 3 RBI. Gorden was 2-for-3 with a walk. Grant didn't make an error.
Bulldogs second baseman Cerna made a pair of nifty plays in the field. In the second inning, he stabbed a one-hop throw on an attempted steal and made a swipe tag for the out. Later in the game, he smoothly shoveled the ball from his glove to first base for an out.
"We've played really good defense, and when we've played well, we've done what Austin did on the mound today," Behm said. "Offensively, today, we ran the bases pretty well, we bunted well and did some really good stuff. We've been well-rounded."