Sports
Baseball: Waubonsie Tops Neuqua In A Wild One
Waubonsie Valley 13, Neuqua Valley 11. With wind blowing out on hot day, Warriors comes up with just enough offense.
On a day with the wind howling out and offense never at a premium, it took a pitcher to finally settle down Thursday’s Upstate Eight Valley baseball game between and .
The game featured wild lead changes and power to burn, but it was senior Matt Risch’s work in relief for Waubonsie that helped the Warriors capture a wild, 13-11 win in the opener of a three-game series between the district rivals.
In 3 2/3 innings in relief of Waubonsie ace Mike Murphy, Risch struck out four, including all three outs of the bottom of the seventh inning, and did not allow a hit. That shutdown pitching allowed the Warriors to erase an 11-7 lead and come back for the win.
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“I didn’t expect to come in early, because usually when Murph starts, he’s solid all seven innings,” Risch said. “It was a tough day for him but I was glad to come in and help out.”
Murphy had a rare rough outing, leaving after a Ryan O’Keefe three-run home run in the fourth gave the Wildcats (17-7-1 overall, 9-7-1 UE Valley) an 11-7 lead, which brought Risch into the game.
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Risch held Neuqua at bay, which gave the Warriors (14-11, 13-7) a chance to come back with the wind blowing out on a steamy day.
That comeback started with an unearned run in the fifth. Murphy reached on an error to lead off the sixth, Tyler Josupait followed with a single and Kyle Limanowski belted an opposite-field three-run homer to tie the game 11-11.
Waubonsie turned the power back on in the top of the seventh to take the lead back. Mitch Stefani led off with a double and Eric Josupait followed two batters later with a two-run homer off a Tomas Michelson inside fastball that proved to be the game-winner.
“That’s what I was looking for,” Josupait said. “I was just trying to move the baseball. You never know when you see towering home runs like today, but then you see bloop hits that fall in. Especially with it being tied, you just want to drive the run in.
"Fortunately, I did it with a home run. But I’d take a single any day.”
Waubonsie jumped out to a 7-2 lead, keyed by Chris Anderson’s two-run double in the second and Stefani’s two-run single in the third. But Neuqua roared back, scoring nine unanswered runs off Murphy to regain the lead.
In that time, the Wildcats belted four home runs. Two came off the bat of catcher Jeff Samuel. His monstrous three-run shot that landed on top of the dugout of the sophomore field beyond the left-field fence tied the game 7-7 in the third. Samuel had also belted a solo shot in the second inning.
Chris Dickens added a two-run shot in the third.
“If you told me that we would get 11 runs off of Murphy, I would have said it would have been a runaway,” Neuqua coach Robin Renner said. “It just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. We hit enough, defended well enough; we just didn’t pitch well enough.”
The series wraps up with a doubleheader starting 10 a.m. Saturday at Waubonsie. And the teams could meet again in the postseason. If Waubonsie wins its postseason opener against Romeoville on May 23, it would set up a date in the Class 4A Lockport Regional semifinals against Neuqua on May 25.
“This is a good confidence booster for these guys,” Waubonsie coach Dan Fezzuoglio said. “We know what our potential is. We just have to continue to work at that. We know who we could be. At this point, we’re starting to hit our stride.”
