Prep baseball: JCA rallies to beat Plainfield North for Voss' 500th

JOLIET – Friday's nonconference baseball game against visiting Plainfield North became a celebration of round numbers for Joliet Catholic Academy.

The Hilltoppers continued their pattern of coming from behind, posting their 10th straight win, 3-1. In the process, they provided 20-year coach Jared Voss with his 500th career victory.

Voss was unable to be on hand for the milestone because he was attending a father-daughter dance with his 6-year-old, Lyla. The game played Friday originally was scheduled for a different date but was rescheduled.

Left-hander Alex Vega allowed an unearned run in the top of the first inning and then blanked the Tigers (12-5) over his final five innings. Greg Ziegler relieved to open the seventh and struck out two of three hitters he faced to earn a save.

Meanwhile, North junior right-handers Dylan Szajkovics and Nate Curtis stifled the offense of the Hilltoppers (16-3) through four innings as the Tigers maintained their 1-0 lead. Curtis relieved with the bases loaded and one out in the fourth and induced a 6-4-3 double play to escape.

"Both our kids pitched pretty well," said 12-year North coach John Darlington, who entered the game with 298 career victories. "They combined for four innings all year before this because of the weather."

In the bottom of the fifth, a one-out walk to 9-hitter Christian Knapczyk put JCA in business. On a hit-and-run, Aidan Tyrell lined a double into the left-field corner to score Knapczyk. Matt Bebar singled to put runners at first and third and Simon Grashoff drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly to center.

"The hit-and-run, the kid being able to score from first, that was the key to the whole game," said Hilltoppers assistant Tony Giese, the head coach for this day.

"It was a 1-0 count and I was looking for a fastball and got one up and away," Tyrell said.

North had a runner on third with nobody out in the top of the sixth. But after a strikeout, Sean Tillmon laid down an attempted squeeze bunt that rolled toward a charging Vera. He gloved the ball, glanced at pinch-runner Noah Mazza coming down the line and flipped the ball to catcher Tony Fleischauer, who applied the tag for the out. Vera (3-0), who yielded three hits, struck out eight and walked four, thus escaped the inning with the 2-1 lead.

"I hesitated because I thought at first the runner had stopped," Vera said. "Then I flipped it to Tony and he made the tag. That was a big out. It helped us a lot."

"We work on PFPs [pitchers fielding their position] all the time," said Tyrell, the staff ace.

"I was getting too deep in counts earlier in the game," Vera said. "Coach Quigs [pitching coach Ryan Quigley] said I had to do better than that if I wanted to stay in the game."

North stranded two runners in the second, third and fifth innings.

"We didn't get the big hit," said Darlington, whose team scored 18 runs in each of its two previous games. "You can't strike out 10 times like we did. You have to put the ball in play. It may be hard to believe, but if you put the ball in play, high school kids can make errors."

The Hilltoppers tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth to make it 3-1 as Fleischauer lined a leadoff double, after which courtesy runner Nick Iannantone stole third and scored on an overthrow on the play. Then Ziegler took over on the mound and finished it off.

"We've been hitting well and making the defensive plays [during the 10-game winning streak]," said Tyrell, who joined Ziegler with two of JCA's six hits while Grashoff added a hit in addition to his decisive sacrifice fly.

"These kids keep believing," Giese said. "They've got the mojo right now. It seems to be in the DNA of these kids."