Baseball: Batavia pitches out of trouble, knocks off Lake Park
Batavia’s pitchers got into plenty of trouble against Lake Park on Wednesday, but they did a great job of getting out of it.
Despite almost constant traffic on the basepaths, the Bulldog hurlers were able to hold the Lancers to just 5 runs. The offense did the rest, slugging 2 home runs among 10 hits. It all added up to a 10-5 DuKane Conference victory in Batavia.
Liam Darre and Brandon Oke went deep in the Bulldogs’ 5-run second inning and finished with 2 hits apiece. Darren Barnes had an RBI double among his 3 hits. Brennon Zeng had 2 hits and reached base 4 times.
“It’s not often a team wins by 5 after giving up 10 walks and 7 hit batters,” said Batavia coach Alex Beckmann.
But the Bulldogs allowed just 3 hits and they made the pitches when they needed to. The Lancers left 13 runners on base. They loaded the bases in the second through the fifth innings.
The Batavia defense did its part. Darre scooped up 3 throws at first base, all with the bases loaded, and Ryan Rodriguez started a double play that likely saved a big inning in the fifth.
Gavin Rosengren, the final Batavia pitcher, recorded the last 9 outs, including the only clean inning in the seventh.
Darre’s bomb to left field leading off the second put Batavia ahead to stay. Chase Hampton followed with a single and Oke parked a curve ball over the fence in left center to make it 4-1.
“In my first at-bat, I saw the curveball pretty well,” Oke said. “I was fouling off waiting to get it again. I got it back and fortunately I didn’t miss it.”
Batavia (5-7, 2-1) tacked on 2 more runs in the second. The Bulldogs added 2 in the fourth and single runs in the fifth and sixth. Oke, Barnes and Zeng drove in runs, and Zeng came in on a wild pitch.
Maxwell Mohapp drove in 2 runs with bases-loaded walks for Lake Park. Chris Ray reached base 4 times by hit, walk, or hit-by-pitch. Ninth hitter Max Alvarado walked 3 times and scored twice.
The Lancers (8-6, 1-2) scored twice in the fifth after an unpromising start. Rocco Jones led off with a single but was erased on a double play. Ray then restarted the rally with a grounder past second base that nearly rolled to the wall in center leaving Ray on second. Three walks and a hit batter produced 2 runs.
Lake Park’s Jack Gallagher was hit in the helmet in that fifth inning. After being attended to by a trainer for several minutes, he was able to walk off under his own power but left the game.