Baseball: Adam Williamson, Bulldogs make quick work of visiting Herscher

STREATOR – Putting up crooked numbers every other inning while not allowing the opposing team to score makes for a quick and efficient way to win a baseball game.

And that’s exactly what the Streator Bulldogs’ 10-0, five-inning Illinois Central Eight Conference win over visiting Herscher on Monday was.

Quick and efficient.

The Bulldogs (15-7 overall, 7-4 ICE) scored in bunches to reach the number of runs needed to enforce the 10-run rule, right-handed senior Adam Williamson pitched a five-inning shutout allowing two hits, walking none and striking out nine, and Streator sent the Tigers (13-14, 4-7) home with the series-opening loss in a brisk 1 hour, 19 minutes.

“I was living a little bit up [in the strike zone], and I need to get a little bit down, but my changeup was working well for me, and so was my curveball,” Williamson said. “And my fastball was moving a lot with the wind, but I was still hitting my spots pretty well, and it was a pretty consistent zone behind the plate.

“[Catcher Logan Aukland] is awesome to throw to. He knows all our pitches, knows how all of them move, and he takes them real well, gets a lot of calls [on pitches] that are close. It’s great pitching to him.”

The ICE series is scheduled to conclude Tuesday in Herscher, kicking off a three-game road trip that will also take the Bulldogs to Metamora on Friday and Reed-Custer on Monday.

“You know, Adam was on today. He commanded the strike zone, and Logan did a nice job receiving back there. It was one of those games where you just have to play catch with each other.”

—  Beau Albert, Streator baseball coach

If there was a flaw in the Bulldogs’ game Monday, it came in the field where Streator committed three throwing errors, including two in the second inning. Williamson pitched ably through through those miscues, however.

The two Tigers batters who reached on errors were the only Herscher baserunners on the day to make it into scoring position. The first was stranded at third on a called strike three; the second was erased at home trying to advance on a pitch to the backstop on a nice play by Aukland and Williamson to end the fourth.

“You know, Adam was on today,” Streator coach Beau Albert said. “He commanded the strike zone, and Logan did a nice job receiving back there. It was one of those games where you just have to play catch with each other.

“There weren’t a lot of balls put in play. There were two hits and [three] errors behind him, and sometimes [errors] happen, you kind of fall asleep defensively when they’re not putting the ball in play.

“But I think we did an outstanding job overall, and I think we had outstanding at-bats all game too.”

While Williamson – who needed only 73 pitches, 50 of them strikes – and Aukland were taking care of the Herscher lineup in the top halves of innings, the Bulldogs offense was taking care of business in the bottom halves.

Williamson (3 for 4, two runs scored, run batted in), Christian Benning (RBI double, two runs scored), Landon Muntz (RBI double), Moe Bacon (RBI double), Parker Phillis (double, two runs scored), Cole Martin (sacrifice fly) and Brady Grabowski (sacrifice fly) led a Streator attack that scored four runs in the first, twice in the third and four times in the fifth to enforce the 10-run rule.

“Several of the guys have been locked in and hitting the cover off the baseball here lately,” Albert said.

Herscher’s Jace Holt (3 IP, 3 ER, 0 K) took the loss on a day the Tigers sent three pitchers to the mound but did not strike out a single Streator hitter.