Baseball: Elgin's offense lacking in loss to Sycamore

Elgin starter Brandon Stork pitched well enough to win Saturday's nonconference baseball game at Sycamore, but the Maroons' offense failed to generate anything against the Spartans' assortment of pitchers.

Sycamore broke open a tight 2-0 game with three runs in the fifth and five Spartan hurlers combined to allow just two hits with 14 strikeouts in a 6-0 victory.

Stork allowed 7 hits and 2 walks for Elgin (0-4) while striking out four over five quality innings.

"Brandon's a tough kid and I have a lot of confidence in him on the mound," said Elgin coach David Foerster. "He's definitely going to be one of the guys we count on both at the plate and on the mound."

"The first inning was a little rough, but I felt good and cruised for three innings," Stork said. "In the fifth they got off to a quick start with a few hits and I was kind of pressured to get outs there."

Rigaberto Sanchez and Robert Bartlett had both Elgin hits in the first inning. The Maroons coaxed 5 walks over the final five innings and advanced runners to third on three occasions, but failed to hit the ball out of the infield.

"We're just not giving ourselves enough opportunities offensively to score runs," Foerster said. "If you only get two or three innings when you get baserunners on it's hard to really compete. We struck out way too many times."

Sycamore started left-hander James Marcinkowski, who fanned 5 in two innings. From there, the Spartans (2-0) mixed in a submariner and a trio of hard-throwing right handers to shut down the Maroons the rest of the way.

"We never saw the same guys twice and we struggled with that," Stork said.

"It's hard to get settled in when you're facing a different guy every two innings, but that's on us to adjust," Foerster added.

"We have a lot of good arms this year and guys that can come at you from different angles," said Sycamore coach Jason Cavanaugh.

Sycamore (2-0) picked up a pair of runs in the first as Jack Mizgalski and Jordan Wright delivered back-to-back doubles and Wright scored on a two-out throwing error.

Stork allowed just 2 hits over the next three frames and was the beneficiary of a nice diving catch from shortstop Eddy Ramos on a pop-up in foul ground to close out the fourth.

Sycamore loaded the bases to open the fifth before Stork got a force out at home on a grounder to Sanchez at second.

Mike Beaudoin stroked a sharp 2-run single to center and the Spartans tacked on another run on a sacrifice fly, but Stork displayed fortitude in battling through the 36-pitch inning.

"They're a good team, so they're going to get runs there," Stork said. "They finally got the hit they needed, but I felt good to be able to finish that and get out of it myself."

"Stork did a really good job for them. I'd take him anytime," Cavanaugh said.