After dropping the first two games of the series to a very difficult Mundelein Mustangs team, the Scouts sought revenge Wednesday night with the hopes of avoiding a sweep and picking up another win. Jason Cast got the start for the Scouts while Steve Sanchez took the hill for Mundelein. The game got off to a smooth start, but come the 4th inning, weather became an unavoidable obstacle as sheets of rain came pouring down on West Campus. The game was forced to resume Thursday where the Scouts picked up right where they left off.
The only thing that could stop Jason Cast in the first three innings was the rain; otherwise, he was dealing. Cast registered two strikeouts, forced a lot of ground balls, and only gave up one walk, not giving up a single hit. The Mundelein offense, which is notorious for constantly being powerful and diminishing was absolutely shut down. Meanwhile, Sanchez didn’t even allow a Scouts baserunner in the first and second innings, but began to fall apart in the bottom of the third.
After coming off his third straight no-hit inning, Jason Cast hit a leadoff single to center field that got the Scouts in business. Following his single, Brian Heidbreder reached on a walk, moving Cast into scoring position. With one out, Caleb Durbin, who has been one of the Scouts best hitters this year with an average well over .400, sent a fastball to left field which scored Cast from second. With a one run lead in the 3rd, Steve Sanchez was able to eliminate any additional Scouts scoring chances, keeping his team’s deficit at a run. At that point, West Campus was getting drenched, so the umpire decided to delay the game hoping to resume it sometime later that night, but the storm never let up forcing the game to resume Thursday evening.
Due to a high pitch count, Jason Cast could not pitch Thursday. Therefore, Drew Golde came in for relief. After yet another slow start in the first three innings, Mundelein came to West Campus with a different approach at the plate in hopes of tallying up some runs, but despite the Mustangs’ scoring opportunities, the second ranked team in the NSC just could not find a way to get on the board.
In the top of the fifth, the Mundelein Mustangs had their first chance at scoring a run. With two outs and two men on, third baseman Johnny Salm made a smooth play getting a force out at third avoiding any potential damage in the inning.
The Mustangs continued their chances throughout the low-scoring contest thanks to Ryan Patel’s pitching, minus one hiccup in his solid performance. After walking a Scouts batter then giving up a single to Jason Cast, Patel’s only focus was to get out of the inning to keep the Scouts lead at one. He was able to strike the next batter out, but walked Johnny Salm in the following at bat to load the bases. With the bases juiced, Caleb Durbin stepped into the batter’s box searching for his second RBI of the game. After a first pitch strike, Durbin unleashed a single into left field that would score Ryan Chandler. Patel got out of the bases loaded jam, but gave up one more run than he wanted.
In the top of the seventh, Mundelein’s struggling offense would have to find a way to score not one, but two runs against Drew Golde. The Mustangs chances at a comeback were almost deteriorated immediately. Steve Sanchez, who was hoping to cut the lead to just one with the swing of a bat just missed on a pitch, sending a line drive to Brad Czerniejewski in center. The following batter, Brett Parola, also just missed on what could have been a home run but instead landed in the glove of Brian Heidbreder. With two outs, the Scouts could smell victory, but Ryan Magee brought back the pressure to when he singled to center. Andrew Beres represented the tying run. Instead of waiting for the perfect pitch that he could potentially get a hold of, Beres swung at the first pitch that went right to shortstop Caleb Durbin who tossed it to second base for the final out of the game. The Scouts had upset the Mustang’s 2-0.
Offensively, the Scouts didn’t play too well, but they did manage to get two runs that both came off the bat of Caleb Durbin against superb pitching. On defense, however, the Scouts may have had their best game of the season. Given the circumstances of facing an extremely tough team like Mundelein, it is no simple task to keep them under a few runs, nonetheless shut them out, but Jason Cast, Drew Golde and the Scouts defense did just that. Mundelein did have a few scoring chances here and there, but those were immediately shut down by Lake Forest. Drew Golde picked up the win Thursday night as the Lake Forest Scouts baseball team shut out one of their opponents for the third time this year.
The Scouts will pick it up Friday evening on the road, but not terribly far from home. In fact, they are playing less than five minutes away from West Campus. The Scouts will take on Lake Forest Academy at 4:30 tomorrow night. You can think of this non-conference battle as the Cubs vs The White Sox. Go support your Lake Forest Scouts at Lake Forest Academy as the playoff race begins to heat up.
