Coming into Tuesday’s three game set against Zion-Benton, the Lake Forest Scouts Varsity baseball team was (6-13) and hopeful of improving their record against the struggling (4-13 ) Zee-Bees.
The Scouts starting pitcher, Christian McCauley, kept Zion from getting any scoring outbreaks in the first four innings that he pitched, relying on his offense to do the rest and earn the team the victory. Unfortunately, however, the Lake Forest bats just weren’t clicking as much as they had been in prior games.
Once Logan Bakkia managed to get the Scouts first three hitters out, which, needless to say has been a tough task for any opposing pitcher in the past few games, the Zee-Bees stung Lake Forest in the bottom half of the first. Before the Scouts could even get an out, Zion-Benton had two men on with no outs. Brennan Ferguson supplied the first run of the game on an RBI single to center field scoring Ryan Hunt from second base. McCauley and the Scouts defense would quickly wrap up the inning following Ferguson’s RBI, preventing any further damage.
After the scoreless second inning concluded the Scouts offense came alive and was hunting for the lead in the third. Brad Czerniejewski led off the inning with an infield single, then stole second in the Scouts’ following at bat. The next Scouts batter struck out, but Czerniejewski was able to advance to third base because the Zee-Bees catcher couldn’t field the ball in which the hitter struck out on cleanly. Johnny Salm would end up scoring Czerniejewski on a sacrifice fly to center field. With two outs in the inning the Scouts still weren’t done. Once Caleb Durbin got on base with a walk, then stole second, Drew Golde sent a pop fly to shallow left field that seemed to be a certain fly out, but the drifting Zion-Benton third baseman dropped the baseball, allowing Durbin to score, effectively giving the Scouts a 2-1 lead. That lead, however, would be short lived for Lake Forest
Zion-Benton responded in the bottom of the third after giving up two runs on one hit in the top half of the inning. Logan Bakkia started the Zee-Bees third with a double to right field, getting a man in scoring position with no outs. From there, Matt Hamlet reached on an error by the Scouts second basemen, which also scored Bakkia from second. Just like that, Zion-Benton tied the contest and in the following inning would try to get the lead back.
In the bottom of the fourth with the game tied, Robert Hunt hit a triple to right field, which would easily go down as one of the biggest hits of the game. Following Hunt’s at-bat, Collin Shaide hit a single to left field, easily scoring Hunt and giving the Zee-Bees the lead back. At the end of the fourth ,Will Woidat replaced Christian McCauley on the mound in Coach Ray Del Fava’s only pitching change of the game.
The two innings that Will Woidat pitched were fantastic. He didn’t allow the Zee-Bee’s to get a single hit limiting their chances at extending the lead. The defense for the Scouts was there, but the offense was not. Logan Bakkia ended up pitching the whole seven innings of the game only allowing four hits and giving the Scouts barely any chances to come back. The Zion-Benton Zee-Bees picked up the victory over the Scouts with the final score being 3-2.
Last night the Scouts couldn’t figure out how to hit Bakkia. Even some of the Scouts’ most reliable hitters could not seem to get on base. The Scouts have shown improvement in crossing runners from scoring position this year, but it didn’t show on Tuesday night. Lake Forest will look to turn things around on offense tomorrow night as they square off against Zion-Benton again, this time at home at West Campus. The contest will begin at 4:30 at West Campus.
