Redhawks Sweep West Aurora

AURORA – Through one week of DuPage Valley Conference play, baseball team is proving to be quite the clutch-hitting club.

The Redhawks completed the three-game sweep of West Aurora with a 10-2 win Wednesday. Five of those runs were driven in with two outs. Monday, all eight of Central’s runs were scored with two outs.

“I think we’ve done a good job with two strikes,” Central coach Bill Seiple said. “It looks like we’re on the verge of getting out of an inning and we get a two-strike, two-out hit. We’ve had a good batch of those this whole series.”

West Aurora starter Austin Wyeth (1-1) mowed down the first five Redhawks in order Wednesday before Central (7-4 overall, 3-0 DVC) worked a little bit of its two-out magic. Bryce Kirk doubled and scored on a Mike Riordan single. Riordan would then score on an error to make it 2-0.

The lead was 6-0 with two outs in the fourth when Ian Lewandowski cracked an RBI single and Jake DeVoy followed with a towering two-run home run to push the lead to 8-0 and force West (3-6, 0-3) to go to the bullpen.

DeVoy struck out in his first at-bat of the game, but recovered with a sacrifice fly and the home run in his next two plate appearances.

“You just have to have a short memory when you go up there,” DeVoy said. “You have so many at-bats during the season. You can’t hold on to all of the strikeouts. You just have to go up there thinking that every at-bat is a new beginning.”

The run support was much appreciated by sophomore left-hander Jeff Schank, who was making his second start of the season at the varsity level. Schank was pulled from the game after issuing a leadoff walk in the fifth, but was solid in his first four innings. He allowed a run on three hits, struck out four and walked four.

The competition for the spots in the rotation behind ace Dan Ludwig and Lewandowski is ongoing. Jimmy Nashert, another sophomore who is coming off of a solid outing against Stevenson Saturday, will get the ball in Saturday’s non-conference game at Barrington.

“He’s got good enough stuff,” Seiple said of Schank. “It was very encouraging tonight. Hopefully things are starting to settle in. you have to learn rhythm and confidence and I think that as he pitches more, he’ll learn that.”

The final two runs for Central came when Riordan doubled and scored in the fifth and Nashert did the same in the seventh.

Central has spent much of the early part of the season trying to fit the pieces together after graduating the majority of its state championship team from last spring. After sweeping the Blackhawks, Seiple is seeing things start to come together.

“I don’t care who you play,” Seiple said. “It’s hard to win three days in a row. We’re thrilled with that. We’ll run out of here with a smile, I promise you.”