Baseball: Grayslake Central reaches deep to down Grayslake North
Numerous times this season, Grayslake Central has had to reach into its bag of tricks to win baseball games.
The host Rams did it again against district rival Grayslake North, winning 4-2 on Wednesday afternoon in Grayslake.
Grayslake Central (22-4) has the lead in the Northern Lake County Conference at 12-3, with another matchup remaining at Grayslake North (11-10, 8-6) on Thursday and a doubleheader against Lakes on Saturday.
"I was a big fan of (Tony) LaRussa's White Sox in '83, when Doug Rader coined them 'Winning Ugly,' " Grayslake Central coach Troy Whalen said. "I would say that there's probably a piece of that. I'm not sure that there's a lot of style points at times. But the resilience of this team just continues to amaze me. It's working. Can it last another three-to-four weeks? There's definitely no panic in our guys, when they fall behind. We hear it in the huddle from them. They've been there before and we're going to score runs."
On Wednesday, Grayslake North jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the second inning, with both runs unearned.
The Knights' Danny Goers scored on a throwing error and Matt Bucich added an RBI groundout.
"We did put a little pressure on them early," Grayslake North coach Brett Hill said. "We took advantage of a mistake here and there. But, (Grayslake Central) is a good team. There's a reason that they have 22 wins. They don't go away and they didn't (Tuesday) and they came back and beat us (9-6). They keep fighting and Troy does a good job with his lineup and their kids did a good job and filled the strike zone. We just didn't put enough balls in play."
The Rams responded with a run in the bottom half of the inning on Zach Hindman's run-scoring single that made the score 2-1.
Grayslake Central relied on its pitching the rest of the way. Quentin Ott (3-0) recorded three-straight scoreless frames in the third, fourth and fifth with 7 strikeouts and allowed just 2 hits. Sophomore Chris Rodgers threw the last two innings for his second save and struck out 3 batters.
"The big thing that happens when I come into a game," Ott said, "is that I'm always going to play my game. Just to do my job when I come out here and try to make everything look good for the entire team. Every pitch, I have to be completely in the game. I've always been a relief pitcher for my team, I've never started. I just come in when the team is struggling. I think my coach sees me as someone he can rely on and whenever we're in close games."
The Rams rallied with a pair of runs to take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the fifth. Collin Woods scored the tying run on a single by Charlie Marisca and Mike Szyszka hit a run-scoring single past the first baseman for the eventual winning run.
"I had a good piece of hitting and sent it past the first baseman," Szyszka said. "Our team is a very good team that comes back later in games. We might not start out the best, but we sure know how to finish games."
Dayvin Olaiz added another run for insurance in the bottom of the sixth with an RBI double for the Rams.