Baseball: Cary-Grove's Charlie Taczy holds off Huntley for FVC victory

CARY – Fortunately for junior righthander Charlie Taczy, Cary-Grove baseball coach Ryan Passaglia planned on him either finishing his start against Huntley or hitting the pitch-count limit of 105.

“I wanted it bad,” Taczy said. “I struggled a little bit early in the year getting too deep in counts and not finishing batters off when I needed to. So being in that position in the seventh inning is so fun, that’s why I play the game. That’s why I pitch.”

The situation grew a little tense after the Trojans took a two-run lead in the bottom of the sixth. Taczy faced a jam in the top of the seventh with the tying run at third and go-ahead run at first, and the Red Raiders’ No. 3 hitter Ryan Dabe at the plate.

Finally, Taczy got Dabe on a hard ground ball to shortstop Peyton Seaburg, who tossed to second base for the game-ending forceout and a 5-4 C-G victory Monday in their Fox Valley Conference game.

It is the second consecutive season that Taczy has beaten the five-time defending FVC champs at C-G’s home ballpark. He struck out nine and did not walk a batter, finishing with 103 pitches.

Huntley’s Malachi Paplanus also struck out nine and allowed eight hits, half of which did not leave the infield, but took the loss.

“I felt he earned the right to try to finish that,” Passaglia said. “He was pitching that last inning and got a couple balls up and we kicked a ball behind him. He was going to get every opportunity to finish the game.

“Both pitchers pitched so well today. It was a matter of what team was going to capitalize on a couple mistakes, and fortunately it was us.”

In the first inning, Taczy did not look like he would be around in the seventh as AJ Putty doubled, Dabe singled him in and Kyle Larsen doubled down the left-field line.

The Raiders (19-3, 11-2 FVC) added an unearned run in the third for a 3-1 lead, but the Trojans (11-11, 6-7) tied the score in the fifth with two runs, despite a ball not leaving the infield.

Luca Vivaldelli walked, Jacob Steele reached on a bunt, Hayden Dieschbourg beat out a play at first for an RBI infield single and Brock Iverson brought in another run with a ground ball.

Although Huntley was not charged with any errors, Raiders coach Andy Jakubowski still felt the defense let them down.

“We had two miscommunications on bunt coverages where they were giving us an out and we didn’t get an out and it came back to hurt us,” Jakubowski said. “Uncharacteristically, today we were not very good defensively. Taczy did a tremendous job throwing up zeroes in the middle of the game. He got locked in and gave them a chance to come back, and they deserved the win today.”

C-G added two more runs in the sixth when Taczy reached on a bad-hop single to left and Seaburg singled to right field. Vivaldelli drew another walk and Steele brought in a run on an infield hit, then Dieschbourg worked a bases-loaded walk for a 5-3 lead.

“We definitely capitalized by not chasing balls like we had earlier in the game,” Dieschbourg said. “We kept a really good mentality. The first two innings were rough. We were chasing the fastball and as the went on we got our pitch on the fastball and slider up and we capitalized well.”

Griffin Goldstein singled with one out in the top of the seventh and pinch hitter Alex Behles also singled, bringing up Putty, who grounded into to Vivaldelli at third, whose throw was just wide at second, loading the bases.

T.J. Jakubowski’s ground ball brought in a run, but Taczy then got Dabe to end the game.

“Our guys fight every single game,” Andy Jakubowski said. “When we’ve been down we found a way to come back. We had the tying run, winning run on base with our 3 hitter up, we’ll take that every time. Taczy made a pitch, they made a play and the better team won today.”

Taczy had six of his nine strikeouts on batters looking.

“It was a lot of knee-high fastballs, a couple sliders,” he said. “It was pitch selections and setting them up to throw that knee-high fastball. It’s in the hitter’s head and they freeze up.”

Passaglia was proud of the way his team played to knock off the defending champs.

“We were able to execute the game of baseball today, and we haven’t been doing that real cleanly this year,” he said. “We competed well and have to continue to build off of this.”