Brayden Zilis sends Minooka home with narrow victory over Morris

MINOOKA – Hits were hard to come by for both Minooka and Morris on Tuesday afternoon.

But sometimes timing is more important than quantity.

Minooka’s Braydon Zilis swatted one of those scant hits in the bottom of the seventh inning pushing across the winning run in a 2-1 Minooka walk-off victory.

“I mean, it was just putting a bat to the barrel, you’ve got to put it in play,' Zilis said. ”Make them make a play and good things happen when you put the ball in play."

Zilis’ hit was a needed response to Morris, which tied the game in the top of the seventh with an inning that seemed to have potential for a lot more.

A walk and an error put two on with none out and after a drawn-in infield managed to help Minooka (4-0) record the first out of the inning, a hit batter loaded up the bases.

The drawn infield delivered again, getting a force out at the plate for the second out of the inning, but the defense couldn’t wiggle completely out of the jam as Jack Wheeler coaxed a bases-loaded walk to tie the score at one.

A ground out ended the threat and forced Minooka to deliver one more run before ending things.

Things started fine for the Indians with a hit batter and a sacrifice bunt moved that runner over to second but a strikeout followed on a lengthy at-bat for the second out, thrusting Zilis into the hero position.

“He’s a really good baseball player,” Minooka coach Jeff Petrovic said of Zilis. “He had a 0.50 ERA last year, he hasn’t given up a run this year. He plays shortstop every day for us and he’s a super sure-handed infielder too.

“It’s cliche to say he does it all, but he does it all. He’s one of the better baseball players that I’ve coached.”

Zilis also started the contest on the mound in addition to his offensive heroics. An Illinois State recruit, Zilis admittedly didn’t have his best stuff, but found a way to wiggle out of trouble in both the first and second innings.

“I wasn’t at my best today, but you’ve got to battle through adversity sometimes,” Zilis said. “It felt good just to get the win, get some big time outs and keep them down to zero.”

It was key that Zilis did that for Minooka, as Morris (2-3) largely matched the parade of zeros on the scoreboard. The only hiccup came in the second inning, in which two Morris errors elongated the inning and allowed the Indians to scratch across the only run of the first six innings.

It was another close call for Minooka, which also carded a one-run win over Joliet Catholic to start the season.

“We’ve played four games and two of them have been one-run games,” Petrovic said. “Obviously those are the games that make you better. I think that it’s really important to come out on the good end of those one-run games. It’s good to know what you can win those games and maybe expect to win them. And I think it will help us down the road.”