Baseball: Plainfield North rallies back from 8-0 deficit to top Plainfield South

PLAINFIELD – Things couldn’t have gone much worse for the Plainfield North baseball team during the first two and half innings of Friday morning’s matchup with Plainfield South.

The Tigers went down in order in the first two innings and surrendered eight runs to the Cougars, who seemed to have the game well in hand.

Apparently Plainfield North had their district rivals right where they wanted them, as it would plate 15 runs in the next three innings, ultimately securing a 17-11 win.

“You saw the Tigers on the back end of a three-day trip to Georgia. We threw everybody we had in Georgia. It was all right. We threw all juniors today, but it is OK. The young guys had to get in there and pitch,” Plainfield North coach John Darlington said.

“The way I look at it is, if you can still win with those guys on the mound and still battle through a lot of things that we didn’t do well, and we didn’t do a lot of things well, and we’re definitely not in season form yet, but we’ll get there. We’ll keep working.”

Plainfield South (0-5-1) started in fine form; the Cougars got their first five batters on base. Daniel McCauley provided a big hit with a two-run single that gave Plainfield South an early 3-0 lead.

The Cougars would add another run in the second and three more in the third, on three consecutive walks and only one hit, a single by Josh McGuigan, to push the lead to 8-0.

After Plainfield South starter Zachary Koral handcuffed Plainfield North for the first two innings, the Tigers finally engineered something in the third. Aiden Simmons coaxed a walk to become Plainfield North’s first baserunner, then a double from Joe Guiliano set up an RBI groundout from Aiden Zelenski.

But there still was a long way to go.

The gap was bridged in a fourth inning in what only could be classified as a disaster for Plainfield South.

John St. Clair led off the inning with a solo home run, one of only two hits Plainfield North would muster in the bizarre frame. Aside from St. Clair’s blast, Plainfield North would coax six walks, get hit by three pitches and reach on a pair of errors along with an infield hit in a carousel of baserunners for the Tigers that at one point saw 11 consecutive batters reach.

After the dust cleared, Plainfield North had sent 17 batters to the plate, scored nine runs and led 10-8.

A few more bats went on the ball in the Plainfield North half of the fifth, but free passes still played a part in a five-run frame where Plainfield North extended its lead to 15-8.

Plainfield South remained scrappy and posted two more runs in the top of the sixth. It added another run in the top half of the seventh and ended the game with the bases loaded, but, ultimately, the free passes issued by the Cougars were too much to overcome.

In all, four Plainfield South pitchers issued eight walks, hit five batters and allowed nine hits. To be fair, Plainfield North didn’t fare much better, allowing 14 hits while allowing eight walks and hitting two batters.

“It was ugly,” Darlington said. “It was really just a battle of who could get an out here and there. And we did.”