Prep baseball: Steelmen prevail in a dandy

JOLIET – The cliché about throwing out the records when a certain two teams meet on the baseball diamond never was more true than Thursday night at Joliet Route 66 Stadium.

This, after all, was Joliet Central versus Joliet West. This was for district bragging rights. This is the game both sides desperately want to win.

“If the guys can’t get up for this game, well, there’s something wrong,” Central coach Kevin Fitzgerald said before the game.

“This is always a special game for the kids, and for us coaches, too,” West coach John Karczewski said. “Fitz played for me, now he’s coaching Central and he coaches the 17U team in my Illinois Dynasty [summer] program.”

The rivalry aspect of the game, before a crowd said to be the largest the turf field has hosted so far, played out as expected. With the score 2-2, West was on the verge of winning it in the bottom of the seventh inning. But Central’s Carlos Garcia, with the help of an excellent defensive play by shortstop Jared King and catcher Ethan Darley, escaped a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation to force extra innings.

Then in the top of the eighth, the Steelmen’s Johnny Slattery, who had hit the ball hard twice earlier, belted a two-out, two-run triple to right-center field to give Central (11-16, 1-14) a 4-2 victory. The Steelmen would have had another insurance run if not for shortstop Tyler Pransky’s remarkable grab of a bloop to short center field.

West (7-19, 3-12) drew first blood, scoring a run in the bottom of the first on a walk to Brett Johnson, Tyler Pransky’s sacrifice and two wild pitches from Steelmen starter Robert Farrell.

Tigers sophomore right-hander Dylan Wolff came within a pitch of escaping a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the top of the second, but on a 3-2 pitch with two outs, Fabian Requena reached out and hit the ball just inside the third-base bag for a two-run double and a 2-1 Central lead.

Johnson helped create the tying run in the third when he singled to right-center, stole second when Farrell thought he had him picked off and went the rest of the way around on two more wild pitches.

After that, Wolff and Farrell took control. Wolff faced the minimum six batters in the fourth and fifth innings, while Farrell struck out four and walked one in two hitless innings.

“We’re always confident with Robert on the mound,” Fitzgerald said.

Wolff worked another perfect inning in the top of the sixth, and the Tigers’ Ben Rogina ignited the decisive uprising in the bottom of the inning when he doubled to left. Chris Rios sacrificed, and Garcia relieved Farrell. He retired Dylan Suca on a soft liner to third and struck out Lorenzo Serrato.

Requena had three hits for Central. Greg Honiotes and Garcia singled in the second inning to help set up Requena’s two-run double, and Kolton Stockdell’s hit ignited the game-winning rally in the eighth.

“We have started to swing the bats a lot better lately,” Fitzgerald said. “Our conference is just so tough. The Plainfield teams are all very, very good, and we’ve seen ’em all.”

Karczewski said the Tigers have been “hot and cold. Our schedule has really been tough. This week, we beat Minooka on Monday, tied Montini on Tuesday, lost to Minooka on Wednesday, and now we will play Lincoln-Way East and Providence the next two days.

“I believe it’s 22 teams on our schedule that are top-six sectional seeds, and most of them are a 1, 2 or 3.”

Central is not among them, but the rivalry makes this a tough game, regardless of which side is yours. When it’s played under the lights at Route 66 Stadium, all the better.