Baseball: Minnesota recruit Simon Skroch strikes out 11, pitches Yorkville past Oswego East

YORKVILLE – Simon Skroch said he was not quite warm enough at the outset of Tuesday’s game in Yorkville, which shouldn’t have surprised.

A howling wind hardly befitting a May afternoon had flags whipping and infield dirt kicking up throughout. Skroch had to navigate those conditions, and traffic on the bases.

Undaunted, Skroch did what he does.

Yorkville’s junior ace, a Minnesota recruit, struck out 11 over six innings, working out of a number of situations with runners on. Nate Harris’ three-run double in the sixth broke the game open, and the Foxes went on to a 5-1 win over Oswego East in the opener of a three-game Southwest Prairie West series.

“First inning I was not quite warm enough, didn’t have my best stuff – but I found it at the end,” Skroch said. “Once I got fully warmed up and into the game, felt pretty good.”

Skroch (5-2) scattered five hits, a walk and a hit batter to lead Yorkville (12-8, 5-2) to its fifth straight win. Kam Yearsley kept up his red-hot hitting by going 3-for-4, and drove in the Foxes’ first run. He also closed the game out in relief.

Oswego East (14-7, 5-2), which had come in winners of six straight, had baserunners in all but one inning off Skroch. The Wolves had multiple baserunners in four innings, but Skroch’s lone blemish on the scoreboard was an errant pickoff throw that allowed Dylan Kubek to score from second in the fifth.

“They put the ball in play, credit to them, we made a few errors behind him, some situations were difficult – but Simon did what Simon usually does,” Yorkville coach Tom Cerven said. “He battled. He kept us in the ballgame. He was able to minimize the damage and keep us around long enough for our offense to break it open.”

Skroch had all three of his pitches working in different spots.

He got two swinging strikeouts on fastballs with two runners on in the second inning. In the third, Skroch got three called third strikes on breaking balls, sandwiched around two Oswego East singles.

“Simon has a really good three-pitch mix,” Cerven said. “For Simon the key is getting the fastball over on a regular basis. It allows him to go to those other pitches more frequently. He was able to spot his fastball and worked off of that with his curveball and changeup.”

Skroch, who has pitched to a 2.19 ERA in this his third varsity season, looked every bit the seasoned veteran every time he got in jams.

“I knew they weren’t squaring me up,” he said. “I had to just keep doing what I was doing, pounding the zone as best as I could.”

Yorkville provided Skroch some early run support.

Yearsley pulled a single to right field with one out in the first to score Sebastian Westphal, and with two out Everett Ford singled in Yearsley.

“That inning was huge,” Yearsley said. “It set the energy for us.”

Yearsley, with his three hits, raised his season average to a sizzling .556.

“My approach has been middle away, all season,” Yearsley said. “First two games didn’t really have an approach. I just wanted to hit it somewhere hard. But ever since then me and my coaches have talked about it, went to middle away and it’s been working.”

Hard to believe, but Yearsley started the year 0-for-9. Since then, he’s been 35-of-54, a cool .660 average.

“The great thing right now is his approach mentally,” Cerven said. “He’s able to clear his head and even with two strikes he’s able to battle and find a pitch that he can handle and put the barrel on the ball. There is not a situation where he is mentally overmatched.”

Oswego East junior Bode Bregar, for much of the way Tuesday, hardly looked overmatched opposite Yorkville’s ace.

He was nicked for the two runs in the first, but then shut the Foxes out for four innings, and struck out seven. Bregar left the game after issuing a two-out walk in the sixth, which came around to score on Harris’ three-run double.

Oswego East coach Brian Schaeffer has grown used to seeing this kind of effort from his young pitcher.

“Bode competes,” Schaeffer said. “He throws strike, he challenges, he makes adjustments throughout the game. He is one of those guys that is a baseball rat and wants to be out there. We knew he would be a pitcher for us. We didn’t know exactly where he would fall but he’s done a nice job of being one of our front-end guys. He’s seeing the best on other teams and he’s competing.”

Mike Polubinski went 2-for-3 and reached base three times and Kubek and Josh Polubinski each reached base twice for the Wolves.

“We challenged, we were able to get guys on, get them in scoring position,” Schaeffer said. “He [Skroch] just made pitches.”

That is nothing new to Cerven, whose pitchers have allowed a total of seven runs during four of the Foxes’ five wins in their recent win streak. Yorkville has bounced back from a stretch where it lost four of five games.

“We said it from day 1, our strength will be our pitching,” Cerven said. “We hit a little bit of a hiccup, but our pitchers are starting to round back into shape.”