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ELGIN — Sometimes, one pitch is all it takes.
And for Geneva’s Kollin Mickelsen, that’s all he needed to send a ball over the left-field wall for a three-run blast in the first inning.
“I just saw that first pitch and just took it,” Mickelsen said. “It felt great. I’m glad I could contribute to the team in such a big series.”
Mickelsen’s home run gave Geneva a four-run lead, which set the tone for the Vikings’ offense in a 10-0 victory in five innings against St. Charles East on Tuesday afternoon at Judson University.
Geneva coach Brad Wendell said his team came into the game ready to play against the Saints, and it showed from their approach at the plate.
“We were ready to hit,” Wendell said. “We got a lot of barrels on the ball today. I think it’s because we were aggressive in the zone and we found our pitches and did damage with them.”
Mickelsen added another RBI to his plate in the third inning on a fielder’s choice to finish with a team-high four RBIs on the day to go with three runs scored and two stolen bases, both also team highs.
Mickelsen, who batted sixth after spending most of the season batting second for the Vikings, said it felt good to produce some runs after struggling at the plate over the past six games.
“I don’t normally get a chance to bat with guys on base being at the top of the order,” Mickelsen said. “I think moving down helped me relax at the plate.”
Joey Cosentino started the scoring frenzy for Geneva (19-5-1, 9-5-1 DuKane) with an RBI single in the top of the first before scoring on Mickelsen’s three-run shot.
The Vikings also managed to put up three runs in both the third and fourth innings, with Bryce Breon pushing the score to double digits after lining a two-run double to left field with the bases loaded in the bottom of the fourth.
On the defensive side for the Vikings, Josh Feucht managed to keep East off the board despite getting in some jams, including when Feucht got Jake Greenspan to groundout to end the game after having runners on first and second in the fifth inning. He finished the game allowing only four hits and zero walks.
“Josh has been really good for us all year long at throwing strikes,” Wendell said. “He was sharp today. He got people to swing at his pitches and produce outs. And our defense was really sound for us as well.”
Despite not getting any runs on the board, East (11-8, 9-6) managed to connect bat to ball throughout the game, with only three of their batters going down on strikes.
Coach Derek Sutor, who was facing his previous team for the first time since coming to East in 2023, said making contact with the ball has been an emphasis for the team since the series against St. Charles North when the Saints had 36 strikeouts across the series.
“We’ve been working on that for the past week,” Sutor said. “Our focus has been having an approach and getting solid contact on the ball and putting it in play.”
Sutor said after a blowout loss like that, the Saints are going to be forced to see what they’re made of and try to figure out how to bounce back and salvage the series.
“Any time you get beat 10-0 and don’t have a lot of good takeaways from the game, it’s a test to see how quickly you can bounce back,” Sutor said. “We’ve got to figure out what they did well and try not to make the same mistake two times in a row.”