Anyone involved with the Lake Forest Scouts Varsity Baseball team could tell you that they haven’t gotten off to the start that they were hoping for. The Scouts are currently (4-10) and occupy the sixth spot in the North Suburban Conference, which only has seven teams. Of course, with high expectations at the beginning of the season, the Scouts are aiming to still turn things around as the first month of high school baseball is coming to a close. On Monday evening the Scouts strived to begin their path right the ship in the NSC against the Lake Zurich Bears on the road in Lake Zurich.
The Scouts’ first inning showed signs of promise. In the top half of the inning, the Scouts got two guys on with no outs, resulting in Andrew Gough easily picking up an RBI thanks to a ground ball to third base, but it took almost no time for Lake Zurich to answer in the bottom of the first. The Bears’ lead-off man, Austin Matuszewski, gave Lake Zurich their first of seven hits on a drive to left field which resulted in a double. Right after Lake Forest Scouts pitcher Christian McCauley registered his first strikeout, Tyler Snep hit a double to center, easily scoring Matuszewski and tying up the game. The Scouts’ early grip of the game quickly vanished as the evening got darker.
Once Lake Zurich’s starting pitcher Matt Svanson stuck out the side, the Bears began to pull away in the bottom half of the second inning. Lake Zurich quickly got two men on base after an error and a walk, but lost one of their two lead runners when Johnny Salm turned the perfect 4-6-3 double play. But, the caveat to this play was that the Bears’ leadoff runner advanced to third. Austin Matuszewski got in on the action for the second straight inning when he singled to left field, easily scoring Ben Cornelius from third.
The scoring didn’t stop there. Matt Svanson registered his second straight perfect inning in the third as the Bears got back at it on offense. After crossing the plate in second inning, Ben Cornelius this time scored Dylan Niedzwiecki with two outs, giving Svanson more cushion on defense. The worst was still on the horizon for the Scouts.
Lake Zurich began the fourth by getting two baserunners on back-to-back walks, then Tyler Snep hit an RBI double, giving the Bears a 4-1 lead, but the damage still wasn’t done. With two outs, Dylan Niedzwiecki hit a bases clearing triple to give them a 6-1 lead. If the Scouts could have prevented the big fourth inning, they would have still been in the game for the innings to come.
Neither team scored in the final three innings of the game, ultimately granting the Lake Zurich Bears the 6-1 victory over Lake Forest. Christian McCauley pitched three innings for the Scouts while Will Woidat and Colin McDonnell finished up the final three innings. Matt Svanson ended up pitching the whole game for Lake Zurich, granting him the win.
The reason why the Scouts lost wasn’t because they couldn’t hit Svanson. In fact, they ended up getting six hits off of him, which was only one lower than the amount of hits Lake Zurich got Monday evening. The Scouts simply couldn’t get runners in when they were in scoring position. The Scouts had many chances throughout the evening to score runners and keep the game close, but they couldn’t. In order for them to defeat the Bears on Tuesday, they need to produce when it matters the most–when there are runners in scoring position on second and third base, especially in two out situations. The Lake Forest Scouts will meet with Lake Zurich at 4:30 over at West Campus as they look to begin climbing the ladder back to the top of the conference.
