Monday night, two teams remained undefeated in North Suburban conference play: the Libertyville Wildcats and the Lake Zurich Bears. The Lake Forest Scouts varsity baseball team had a crack at taking down the Wildcats over the weekend, but fell just short in both chances. Fortunately, they had a chance to redeem themselves Monday night against the Lake Zurich Bears. Michael Vallone took the hill in what would shape out to be defensive battle, but in the late stages when the game mattered the most, Lake Forest committed a few preventable errors that would end up costing them the game.
Neither team wasted much time getting on the board. In the top of the first, after Austin Matuszewski earned a lead off walk, Anthony Magano advanced the runner all the way to third on a grounder to right field. Matuszewski’s speed easily allowed him to come home on the next at bat when Tyler Snep grounded out to first. Down a run early, Lake Forest stormed back immediately in the bottom half of the inning.
After quickly falling down 0-2 in the count, Caleb Durbin took a somewhat aggressive approach at the plate and drilled a triple to right field. With a runner in scoring position, Drew Golde then hit a sacrifice fly deep enough to right, allowing Durbin to come home tying the game up at one. After the 1st, the story of the game was defense. Ben Cornelius and Michael Vallone’s dominance on the hill made for a thrilling game that would go down to the wire.
Each team had a few scoring chances before the seventh inning, but some defensive highlights kept the game knotted at one. After Vallone gave up a leadoff walk in the top of the 4th, base-runner Tyler Snep darted for second base, however catcher Brady Christoph’s throw beat him to the base registering the first out of the inning. This was especially important, because the next batter up for Lake Zurich hit a single that would’ve likely scored Snep. Then, later on in the top top of the 6th, the Bears had men on first and second with one out. At that point Vallone was pulled from the game and Colin Mcdonnell came in for relief. Mcdonnell managed to strike out Bryan Rasbid, then Will Woidat finished the job by sending Austin Krause back to the dugout on strikes. With one inning left and the game tied at one, the Scouts were three outs away from putting the game into their hands.
Disaster struck right away in the top of the seventh. Woidat struck out Johnny Casey on three pitches, but the final one got by catcher Brady Christoph allowing him to reach first. In the next at-bat, the ball got passed the Scouts catcher three times allowing Casey to come all the away around the basepaths and score. Without recording a hit or a walk, the Bears had the lead in the top of the seventh.
Lake Forest had a chance to tie the game in their final plate appearance. With one out, Will Davis singled, but managed to get to second on a throwing error. Following his at-bat, Drew Golde singled to left, but Davis was held at third. With two outs, Breck Nowik just missed a monstrous hit by barely getting under the ball and sending a routine pop fly to the Bears third basemen. The Scouts ended up leaving two runners on in the bottom of the seventh and suffered another heartbreaking defeat losing 2-1.
Simply put, this game was a pitchers’ duel. Even though Lake Forest lost, they still had one more hit than Lake Zurich did (6) and no errors on defense aside from wild pitches and passed balls. The thing that separated these two teams in the end was a few fixable errors by the Scouts pitcher and catcher at the end of the game. The one major cause of concern tonight was the ten times the Scouts struck out. Especially with runners on, putting the ball in play is crucial. This one will surely sting, but Lake Forest has another chance to beat the same team on the road tomorrow evening. Even though the Bears are number in the NSC, they are still beatable as proven tonight.
