Baseball: Lincoln-Way East uses entire roster to edge Lincoln-Way Central

FRANKFORT – The Lincoln-Way East baseball team carries a relatively large roster of players.

And the Griffins needed almost all of them to contribute in some way in order for them to collect an 11-10 SouthWest Suburban Conference victory over visiting Lincoln-Way Central on Monday afternoon.

“You need a lot of pitching, and you need a lot of guys to step up in an 11-10 game,” Lincoln-Way East coach Eric Brauer said. “Credit the hitters for both teams, lot of well-hit balls and a lot of balls in play.”

The pivotal ball in play came in the bottom of the sixth. After Lincoln-Way Central grabbed a 10-7 lead in the top of the sixth with its second consecutive four-run inning, Lincoln-Way East mounted a response.

John Connors led off the inning with a clean single, and after a flyout the Knights appeared to be on the verge of quickly squelching the Griffins’ potential rally as a comebacker to the mound appeared to be a tailor-made double play ball. But the throw to second went awry, and after Aaron Scott coaxed a walk to load the bases, an RBI groundout from Matt Hudik pulled the Griffins to within 10-8.

Tyler Bell, a junior committed to Pittsburgh, then stepped in with the goal of simply moving the line forward.

“I was just trying to get the ball in the air and get to the middle,” Bell said. “I was coming around the ball all day getting it off the end. I just tried to get a barrel with guys on second and third and tried to get those two runs in.”

He definitely found the barrel, depositing the pitch well beyond the right-center field fence for a three-run homer to give the Griffins (10-4, 3-0 SWSC) an 11-10 lead they would make stand up.

After a four-run outburst of its own in the third inning, Lincoln-Way East seemed to have the upper hand, but the game’s twists and turns were far from over. Lincoln-Way Central (6-4, 2-1), however, was far from finished.

The Knights batted around in the fifth and sixth innings, erasing the Griffins’ advantage, claiming a 10-7 lead and forcing Lincoln-Way East to dig fairly deep into its pitching staff.

Connor Bird picked up the win in relief for Lincoln-Way East. Starter Zach Kwasny, who is the team’s ace, labored through four innings after tearing a piece of skin off his big toe on his right foot.

“He could go, but then the adrenaline would wear off,” Brauer said. “He’s the ultimate warrior and competitor for us. We always know he’s going to give us everything he’s got, and we count on that from him. But sometimes you have to be smart and get him out. But he wants to compete and be out there for his guys.”

Kwasny hit the wall in the fifth inning and loaded the bases before departing, and the bullpen couldn’t fend off the Knights’ relentless offensive attack, but Bird settled in after allowing an RBI single in the sixth.

Fortunately for the Griffins, an offense that was virtually nonexistent during Lincoln-Way East’s spring trip to Tennessee woke up just in the nick of time.

“We scored more runs today than we did all of last week,” Brauer said. “We had been struggling a little bit at the plate, piecing together good at-bats where maybe they’d hit a line drive at somebody and be out and then be down about it. And we’d had a lot of 1-2-3 innings, and sometimes it is hard to get the ball rolling in a positive direction, but today we were more positive at the plate than we had been in the last week.”