Baseball: Julius Sanchez’s home run in the 8th lifts La Salle-Peru past Ottawa

OGLESBY — La Salle-Peru senior Julius Sanchez stepped out of the batter’s box, took a practice swing, adjusted his helmet, then stepped back in as he tapped his bat on home plate to await a 3-1 pitch from Ottawa’s Daniel Bruner with two outs and a runner on first in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Seconds later, Sanchez was rounding the bases at Dickinson Field after smacking the offering over the left-field fence to give the Cavaliers a thrilling, 7-5, Interstate Eight Conference victory over the rival Pirates on Friday night.

“Yep, fastball right down the middle,” Sanchez said when asked the pitch and location. “That type of contact, it doesn’t even feel like the ball hits the bat. I just wanted to stay back and not get out in front. I wasn’t watching [the ball], to be honest. I just ran. I didn’t know it had cleared the fence until everyone started screaming.

“Winning a game against your rival, doing something positive for your team ... it’s just the best feeling in the world.”

The decision, with both teams in the thick of the league championship race, improved L-P to 10-7 overall and 5-2 in the conference, while Ottawa fell to 11-4 and 5-2. The game was originally scheduled to be played at King Field in Ottawa, but an early afternoon downpour moved the game west.

“I thought about running out to coach third base there in the eighth inning. Both teams were scrapping and clawing, kids are making diving plays, kids are making great pitches,” L-P coach Matt Glupczynski said. “Would you expect anything else when it’s L-P and Ottawa?

“This was the second game in a row where the guys played an all-around complete game. We got down early but didn’t roll over when things weren’t going our way with some errors and not getting key hits. I told them when we got down 5-2, if we can lock in defensively and shut them down that we were going to come back and win. They believed, and the game played out that way.”

The squads traded runs in the first with Ottawa getting an RBI double from Luke Cushing off L-P starter Joey Story and the Cavs countering with a sacrifice fly by Sanchez off Pirates starter Payton Mangold.

L-P grabbed a 2-1 lead in the second on a sacrifice fly by Jack Scheri, but Ottawa plated three runs in the third on an error, a wild pitch and an RBI groundout by Rylan Dorsey. The visitors added another tally in the fourth on an RBI groundout by Ryan Chamberlain to make it 5-2.

“This wasn’t necessarily the cleanest game by either side, especially early on,” Ottawa coach Tyler Wargo said. “We were up there, 5-2, and we’ve talked as a team all season about how we have to have a keep-the-foot-on-the-gas mentality. In those situations, we have to tack on runs, and we just weren’t able to do that. The guys battled, but tonight seemed like it was going to come down to who had the final at-bats and, sure enough, it did.

“We had numerous chances throughout the game in big spots, but we were just one hit short and one play in the field short of being on the winning side. That’s how baseball works sometimes.”

The Cavs scored twice in the fourth on a wild pitch and an RBI double by Nolan Van Duzer to get within one, then tied the game in the sixth on a run-scoring base hit by Seth Adams.

In the eighth, Adams reached on a two-out infield single before Sanchez ended the game five pitches later.

L-P sophomore Brendan Boudreau, who came in to pitch in the fourth, fired four scoreless innings before giving way to Mason Lynch with one out and a man on second in the top of the eighth. Lynch fanned two of the three batters he faced to keep the game tied.

“We just brought Brendan back up from the JV team a couple games ago,” Glupczynski said. “His only other appearance before tonight was coming into a bases-loaded jam against Pontiac and getting a groundball double play. He’s very even keeled, and it doesn’t matter the situation.

“He came in and pounded the strike zone, trusted his defense and gave us a chance to get back in the game.”

The two-game series will resume Monday at Ottawa.