Streator wins with walk-off over Reed-Custer

STREATOR – Streator’s Cole Winterrowd already had put together a solid day at the plate when he stepped into the batter’s box with Tuesday’s Illinois Central Eight Conference game against visiting Reed-Custer tied with a runner on first and one out in the bottom of the seventh.

Winterrowd ended the game with an RBI double to right-center, scoring Keegan Angelico – who had reached on an error and was running on the pitch – to give the Bulldogs a 4-3 victory and finish off a 4 for 4, three-double, two-RBI night.

“It was a high fastball away,” Winterrowd said of the final pitch. “With two strikes, I was really not looking for any certain pitch in any location, but I had a feeling I was going to get a fastball because [Comets’ pitcher Alex Bielfeldt] had hung a curveball to me in my last at-bat. I just wanted to do whatever I could to put the ball in play.

“It was a pretty good day. Every hit felt good off the bat, especially the last one.”

Reed-Custer (6-4, 0-3) scored all of its runs in the first inning off Streator starter Jake Hagie. Joe Bembenek and Brady Tyree led off with consecutive singles, the former scoring on an RBI hit by Thomas Emery and the latter on a base hit by Collin Monroe (2 for 2, two walks). Landon Robinson walked and came around to score on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.

Streator (4-6, 1-2) then sent reliever Isaiah Weibel to the mound to start the second inning, and he went the final six innings allowing just one hit and no runs, with four walks and eight strikeouts.

“[Isaiah] was scheduled to be our closer today, that’s the role he’s kind of taken,” Streator coach Beau Albert said. “But Jake had a tough first, and I just felt we needed to make a change.

“This was truly a bulldog effort from Isaiah. He kept Reed-Custer off the board, and we were able to chip away and eventually win it.”

“I really wasn’t doing anything special,” Weibel said. “I was just getting the ball, trying to work quick and trying to throw fastballs in the zone. I have other pitches, but they just weren’t working, so I went with what was working.”

Streator was able to push across a run in third off Bielfeldt (6⅓ IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K) on a run-scoring double by Winterrowd. Then in the fifth, Weibel tied the game at 3 with a two-run double to left center.

“[Weibel] has a little giddy-up on his fastball, and he just continued to beat us with it throughout the game,” Reed-Custer coach Jake Evans said. “I thought we took too many hittable fastballs early in counts and got ourselves into a lot of pitcher’s counts.”

After the first inning, the Comets were 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base.

“That said, we had traffic on the basepaths, guys in scoring position multiple innings and just weren’t able to come through with that big hit,” Evans said. “We were able to get those three right off the bat, but then just couldn’t find a way to add or to keep them from chipping away.

“I though Alex pitched a heck of a game, battled, gave us an opportunity to win and deserved a better outcome, for sure.”

In the seventh, Angelico reached on an infield error and was attempting to steal second on the pitch that became Winterrowd’s shot to the gap.

“I knew we had to find a way to get Keegan to second before two outs,” Albert said. “With a 2-2 count, I figured [Bielfeldt] was going to go with his curveball, and even on a swing and miss we’d have a guy on second with [lefty Colin Byers] up next. But it worked out better than I thought with Cole coming through.”