Kaneland baseball finishes off three-game sweep over Batavia

MAPLE PARK – The middle of Kaneland’s lineup is growing trickier to deal with by the game.

No. 3 hitter Dave Dudzinski continued his recent wave of extra-base hits, cleanup man Bobby Thorson reached base all three times and No. 5 hitter Jake Tickle extended his hitting streak to 18 games on Thursday as Kaneland beat Batavia, 7-2, for a Western Sun Conference series sweep.

“Being in front of them, getting on base and letting them hit the ball and scoring, it’s working out real well,” said Kaneland outfielder Joe Camiliere, No. 2 in the Knights’ order. “Those guys are just smacking the ball around.”

Knights coach Brian Aversa wasn’t sure what kind of performance he’d see one day after a grueling, 10-inning victory, in which Kaneland was down to its last strike before sending the game to extra innings. But the Knights started fast, and handled the heavy wind gusts with relative ease.

Kaneland (15-9, 8-4 WSC) scored two runs in each of the first two innings against Batavia starter Michael Rutas, including back-to-back doubles by Camiliere and Dudzinski in the first inning. Camiliere added an RBI single in the second.

“Last night’s game was a lot of emotion and really draining, so I was glad for us to come out, double by Joe, double by Dave,” Aversa said. “It just got the ball rolling right away in the first inning – I was really leery of how we were going to come out with this wind, excuses, everything else. We really came to play today, and Steve Colombe came to pitch today.”

Colombe pitched a complete game, clicking especially well in the late innings. The Bulldogs went down 1-2-3 in each of the final two innings.

Batavia received a solo home run from Anthony Carby and Jay Clark had an RBI single, but it was a downer of a week for the Bulldogs (9-11, 7-5 WSC), who saw their WSC title defense hopes dim leading up to next week’s series with first-place Geneva.

Batavia coach Matt Holm had a lengthy postgame talk with his team about how to better handle various defensive scenarios.

“You do more coaching when you’re struggling than you ever do when you’re doing well,” Holm said. “Last year, all I had to do was just sit back and let them play.”

In addition to Tickle’s hit streak – which was perhaps preserved thanks to a timely breeze that helped his fourth-inning drive drop in center field – Batavia leadoff man Tim Schofield singled in the fifth to run his season-long streak to 20.

The series sweep was Kaneland’s second straight after going 2-4 to start the conference season.

“We had a lot of fun,” Tickle said. “[Batavia is] a big rival of ours. It was good to come back from last year’s sweep and sweep them.”

Holm said the wind didn’t cost his team but joked that it made for a trying afternoon.

“It’s always windy [at Kaneland] but nothing to the point where it’s going to blow me over [like Thursday],” Holm said. “I know I’m getting a little lighter but I thought I was going to end up in the cornfields.”

“I’m just glad it was a warm wind today,” Aversa said.