Baseball: Waubonsie Valley clinches DVC regular season title

Hitting, pitching and defense are all crucial elements in baseball. But success remains obtainable even if those elements have different levels of excellence.

A successful season continued Tuesday for Waubonsie Valley who beat visiting Naperville North, 6-4.

The Warriors (18-9, 10-4) won the DuPage Valley Conference title outright thanks to this victory and DeKalb losing Monday. They will have the No. 1 seed at next week’s DVC tournament.

Coach Bryan Acevedo said the pitching and defense have stood out the most for his team.

"We have been throwing a lot of strikes and playing clean defense," he said.

Tuesday's winning pitcher was Ryan Morton. He went the distance and struck out six.

"You do what you do from the start (when you pitch a complete game). I like strikes and you try and find the zone," he said.

Naperville North coach Jim Chiappetta said the Huskies (11-12, 7-7) must make the most of chances when hosting Waubonsie Valley on Thursday in the rubber game of the series.

"We talked to the kids to take advantage of opportunities. We got runs later in the game, but only two in the first. I thought we would get more,“ he said.

An RBI single by Jackson Prentice and an interference call on a Waubonsie Valley player gave North those two runs.

Waubonsie took a 3-2 lead after three innings thanks to a sacrifice fly by Nick Martin and then a double by Josh Hung and a single by Hiroshy Wong in the third.

A two-run single, smashed by Prentice, gave the Huskies the lead back at 4-3 in the fourth.

Consecutive singles gave Waubonsie Valley the lead back at 5-4 and the Warriors did not let go. Sean Carroll connected followed by Morton.

Morton said the Waubonsie Valley hitting is strong, but like any team there is always room for improvement.

"We just need to continue to stay on top and hit line drives," he said.