Baseball: Batavia's bats hot early, often vs. Waubonsie Valley
After the first pitch of Thursday's game against Waubonsie Valley was delayed for 25 minutes due to transportation issues, Batavia wasted little time in putting numbers on the scoreboard.
The host Bulldogs plated four runs in the first inning. The hitting barrage continued as runners crossed the plate in every frame in the 16-3 five-inning nonconference win over the Warriors.
Senior catcher Henry Saul led the attack, going 4-for-4 with two singles, a double and a three-run home run. Bulldog batters wrapped out 10 hits.
"We were hitting line drives all over the place, using the whole field and taking what they gave us. We also took advantage of some of their mistakes and had some big innings." said Batavia coach Alex Beckman. "(Saul) had the best game of the year. I hope he can keep that rolling into next week for us."
Jacob Aseltine, Batavia's leadoff man, smashed the fifth pitch he saw from Warriors starter Carter King in the bottom of the first into the right field gap for a triple. The junior scored on Ryne Woods' fly out to center field.
Saul followed with a double to left field. Four of the next five batters reached base safely on three hits and one error that plated an additional three runs.
Waubonsie (3-6-1) got back three runs in the top of the second. Wanting to give all his pitchers innings, Bulldogs coach Alex Beckman replaced starter Joe Kleist with Jack Watson. The senior gave up a leadoff double to Mason Ringenbach and walked the next four batters.
"We start conference next week and we don't play again until Monday, so I wanted to get a lot guys some work today," the Batavia coach said.
Gavin Rosengren came in and ended the rally. The Bulldogs got a strikeout/throw-out double play when Rosengren fanned Tanner Atkins and Saul threw out Sean Carroll trying to steal second base. Batavia just missed a triple play. After tagging out Carroll, shortstop Nate Nazos fired the ball back to Saul, but Robert Owen beat the tag to steal home.
"That's something I been working on in practice, working on my transition and getting my throws down," Saul said about throwing the runner out. "I think it translated really well into the game."
Saul also nabbed another base stealer in the third.
Batavia (5-2) scored four more runs in the second when five batters in a row safely reached base and three in the third when six straight hitters got on base. Both strings featured singles by Saul and Waubonsie fielding errors.
"They did a nice job of squaring up a lot of pitches. They had a lot of extra base hits early. We didn't help ourselves defensively - seven errors in the infield that kind of put us behind the eight ball," Waubonsie coach Ryne Gill said. "The way they swung it and we didn't pick it up was the story of the game."
The last three runs of the game crossed the plate on Saul's homer over the left field fence in the fourth inning.
"I was just seeing the ball well and trying to put it into play," said the senior catcher. "I found the barrel, trusted my swing and it went."
Rosengren pitched through the fourth inning. Kiran Yasuda took the hill in the fifth.
"For the most part, I was happy with our pitching. We had to work on finding the zone early. We kind of gifted them a few in that one inning," said Beckman. "Gavin did a really good job coming in and stopping the bleeding."