Baseball: St. Charles East sweeps Geneva series
St. Charles East's baseball team literally doubled its pleasure Tuesday afternoon.
After winning the completion of Monday's lightning-suspended game against Geneva, 6-0, the Saints (13-3-1, 8-1) hung on for a 7-6 victory in the regularly scheduled DuKane Conference contest while finishing their 3-game sweep of the Vikings (8-11-1, 2-7).
Junior right-handed reliever Grant Meador recorded his second victory of the series in the opener before the Saints snapped a 2-2 deadlock with a decisive 5-run fifth inning in the nightcap.
Sophomore catcher Kyle Hayes, who helped set the tone for the series with his walk-off solo home run to complete the Saints' late-inning comeback from a 7-2 deficit during last Saturday's first game, drove in the go-ahead run with a 2-out single on a 1-2 off-speed pitch in the bottom of the fifth.
"Honestly, I knew they weren't going to give me anything good to hit," said Hayes. "They were going to work away. I saw a curveball - it was low and I just tried to take it up the middle. I just got enough on it."
"He took a shorter stroke and punched it up the middle," said Saints coach Len Asquini.
It was a nice turnaround for Hayes, who struck out in his first 2 plate appearances against Vikings starter Ben Croci.
"It's part of hitting," said Hayes. "If you have a couple bad at-bats, you can't let that bring you down. Each at-bat is a new life - stay positive and good things happen."
Thomas Schroeder's 2-run single - his third hit of the game - extended the lead to 6-2 before a throwing error allowed the Saints to make it 7-2.
"Thomas (Schroeder) did a wonderful job, hitting a couple 0-2 shots into right field," said Asquini. "Those were big runs for us."
Those runs turned out to be very big for the Saints after the Vikings strung 5 consecutive base hits together in the top of the seventh - all with 2 outs.
After Jackson Chase reached on an infield error, Luke Fisher's RBI double cut the Saints' lead to 7-3 before Hunter Venditti's RBI single made it 7-4.
Ryan Stempowski kept the inning alive with a single and Nick Black's 2-run double made it a 7-6 game. Brendan Krohe then reached on an infield error before southpaw reliever Zack Clodi retired Joseph Pantano on a game-ending fly ball to right fielder Nick Schumann.
"I'm proud of my kids for fighting," said Geneva coach Brad Wendell.
"We've had a lot of close things this week that just didn't go our way - and then we didn't help ourselves at all in a lot of situations. You add those two things up and the series looks really bad but I think we played some good baseball in between.
"We're learning in a lot of places. We're young in a lot of places and that shows up a lot of times."
Senior Conner Dunfee was the winning pitcher. He worked 5 innings of 4-hit ball with a walk and 4 strikeouts.
While Geneva awaits its 3-game set with rival Batavia, the Saints open a 3-game series against cross-town rival St. Charles North Friday afternoon.
"I feel like this was a real big series heading into North," said Hayes. "I feel like we've got a lot of positive energy heading into this weekend and hopefully it can translate into those three games."