Baseball: Rolling Meadows knocks off Wheeling again
Rolling Meadows' baseball team is very economical.
On Monday the Mustangs beat Wheeling 1-0 thanks to a first-inning wild pitch.
On Tuesday Meadows had just 1 hit. But the Mustangs took advantage of 7 hit batters and three Wheeling errors as Meadows upended the Wildcats for the second day in a row with a 5-2 Mid-Suburban East win in Wheeling.
"That is the word to describe it," Rolling Meadows coach Matt Rice said. "We may not be getting it done with the sticks, but we have had some very heads up baserunning, The kids are playing aggressive and smart."
Rolling Meadows (3-2, 2-0) scored its first run on a balk. Lucas Prodanovic walked and then made his way to third when he scored on a one-out balk to make it 1-0.
Wheeling (6-4, 0-2) tied the game in the bottom half of the second as the Wildcats were also opportunistic. Michael Del Genio walked, stole second, went to third on passed ball and scored on Grant Scheuerman's single.
Aggressive baserunning put Meadows up 2-1 in the fourth.
After Ashton Bond was hit by a pitch, he advanced to second on a fielders choice. Bond then scored all the way from second base on an infield single to the right side. He came around to score when Wheeling failed to get over in time to cover first base and Bond beat the late throw home.
"We have been working on speed in the offseason a whole lot," said Bond, who is a senior. "I just trusted my abilities and knew I was going to score."
Wheeling came back to tie the game in the bottom of the fourth. Scheuerman's sacrifice fly was able to score Del Genio, who had reached on an error and made his way to third on a single by Gio Pollina and another error.
Meadows took the lead for good in the fifth. Carter Wachtel was hit by a pitch and then came around to score on a pair of Wheeling errors.
The Mustangs added a pair of insurance runs in seventh without a hit. The Mustangs did get a pair of hit batters to start the inning off and then a walk. Both Wachtel and Carl Movand-Kovash, who were both hit by pitches, scored on a throwing error to make it 5-2.
The Mustangs have been getting great pitching in their two wins.
PJ Ford got the win Monday and Antonio Debartolo started Tuesday and pitched three-plus innings. He gave way to sophomore Braden Koons in the fourth.
Koons, making his first varsity appearance on the mound. He pitched four solid innings, allowing 3 hits while fanning three and walking one to pick up his first varsity win.
"I have been waiting since freshman year for my chance," said Koons, who retired the final six batters he faced, striking out two.
"I wasn't nervous at all. I just wanted to throw hard. My curveball was working pretty good. The wind was horrible, so I was just trying to pitch to contact."
Rice was impressed with his pitching the last two days.
"We are getting great pitching and great defense," Rice said. "If we keep pitching like that I feel we can hand with anyone."
Wheeling coach Jason Wieder said his team just couldn't capitalize on its opportunities.
"We couldn't get the hit," Wieder said. "There was just a lack of execution today. Unfortunately, we kind of gave away five runs too. "