April 29, 2024
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Baseball: Ottawa explodes in late innings, tops Streator 13-3

Pirates took lead over the Bulldogs in third, continued to add on to take rivalry contest

By Brian Hoxsey
Streator’s Zander McCloskey is out at second on a stolen base attempt after Ottawa’s Jace Veith applies the tag in the second inning Thursday at Streator.

Streator’s Zander McCloskey is out at second on a stolen base attempt after Ottawa’s Jace Veith applies the tag in the second inning Thursday at Streator. ( Tom Sistak For Shaw Media )

STREATOR – After falling behind Streator by a couple of runs early, the Ottawa baseball team took the lead with three runs in the third inning, then outscored the hosts by nine over the final four innings to post a 13-3 victory Thursday at the SHS Athletic Fields.

Starting and winning pitcher Colin Fowler went the opening five frames, allowing five hits and three earned runs with five walks and four strikeouts. Tate Wesbecker then came on to retire six of the seven batters he faced in the final two innings to close things out.

“Our situational hitting and situational base running was awesome today. We were taking extra bases when they were there to take, tagging up on balls to advance and putting the ball in play when we had to either score a run or move a guy over. I’m super happy with our all-around game today.”

—  Tyler Wargo, Ottawa baseball coach

At the plate, Ottawa recorded 10 hits, two apiece from Adam Swanson (double, two RBIs) and Jacob Rosetto (double), while Jackson Mangold knocked in three runs, Jace Veith drove in two runs, and Jaxon Cooper, Packston Miller and Garrett Shymanski drove in one each.

“Not too many negatives today,” Ottawa coach Tyler Wargo said. “Colin didn’t have his best stuff but really battled for five innings, and then Tate came in and did what he has done all season for us so far. Our situational hitting and situational base running was awesome today. We were taking extra bases when they were there to take, tagging up on balls to advance and putting the ball in play when we had to either score a run or move a guy over. I’m super happy with our all-around game today.”

Streator (2-4) grabbed the lead in the opening inning on an RBI double by Cole Winterrowd (2 for 3) and an RBI infield single from Jake Hagie.

Ottawa (5-4) took the lead for good in the third on Cooper’s RBI double to center, a wild pitch and an RBI groundout by Mangold. The Pirates made it 5-2 in the top of the fifth on consecutive sacrifice flies from Mangold and Miller.

The Bulldogs got one back in their half of the inning when Hagie was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. As he had in a similar situation in the third, Fowler was able to get the final out to end the threat for a big inning.

“I actually started the postgame message with a positive talking about how well I thought we hit the ball today,” said Streator coach Beau Albert, whose team had six hits and a handful of hard-hit balls for outs. “We hit a number of balls really hard, but unfortunately almost all of them were right at a defender. We also had a couple early innings with the bases loaded and just couldn’t get that next hit to really get things started. That’s baseball sometimes. Things just kind of got away from us there in the final three innings.

“We hung around there for a while, but then it gets to the point where we weren’t matching them on the scoreboard, and you have to start thinking about what arms are we going to have available for Saturday and into next week. I thought [starting pitcher Landon] Muntz (5 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 2BB, 5 K) threw the ball pretty well and a couple of guys came in and got some experience under their belts.”

Ottawa plated two runs in the sixth on a pair of wild pitches, then six runs in the seventh with a two-run single by Veith, a two-run double by Swanson, a pinch hit RBI base hit by Shymanski and an RBI single by Mangold to finish off a productive day at the dish.

“I’ve had my ups and downs at the plate to start the season, but I really feel I’m starting to trend up,” Mangold said. “I’ve stopped thinking too much when I’m up and just looking for a good pitch and then trying to put a good swing on it. That’s really what I did in those first two at-bats where I drove in runs. I knew I had to put the ball in play, so I just focused on getting the barrel of the bat into the zone and really looked to hit the ball the other way to help me stay back.

“My last at-bat was kind of the opposite in I was swinging to get a hit and just wanted to hit the ball as hard as I could. It felt good.”

Ottawa hosts Somonauk on Friday, while Streator entertains La Salle-Peru on Saturday.