Every time Kanon Baxley came up to the plate, he drove in a run.

Combine that with a standout pitching performance from Jack Frey, and it was enough for the Kaneland baseball team to beat La Salle-Peru 9-2 on Tuesday.

The win was the seventh in the last eight games for the Knights (13-10-1 overall, 9-4 conference), who moved a game up on Morris and Sycamore (both 8-5 in conference play) in the I-8 standings with two games left.

“I was lucky enough my teammates were able to get on base before me,” Baxley said. “At that point my job is to drive them in, keep scoring runs. I know I got to two strikes a couple times, took a couple big hacks ... and just put the ball on the ground.”

Baxley finished 3 for 4 with five RBIs a day after he went 3 for 5 with three RBIs against the Cavaliers (9-19, 4-10) in a 12-1 win. He also pitched five innings, struck out 11, allowed one hit and didn’t give up an earned run in the win Monday.

On Tuesday, it was Frey’s turn to throw a gem. In six innings, he allowed four hits, three walks and two runs, one earned. He struck out six.

“He’s a bulldog for us,” Kaneland coach Brian Aversa said. “We know what we’re going to get out of him each and every time. He’s been really consistent with his pitches and throwing strikes. He got us through six tonight, and that’s all we need from him.”

Baxley got the Knights on the board quickly. Aidan Whildin reached base on an error to start the game, then Baxley doubled him home and came around to score on a wild pitch.

The Cavs got a run back in the top of the second. Monti Lorenzi walked, went to third on a double by Gavin Stokes then scored on a dropped-third strike with two outs.

It didn’t stay 2-1 for long. In the bottom of the second, Noah Claeson singled and Joey Pozzi walked. Baxley brought them both home on a single, then later scored on a bases loaded walk by Carter Grabowski as part of the four-run inning.

Claeson and Pozzi, the No. 8 and 9 hitters, each scored twice. Claeson was 2 for 3, and Pozzi was 1 for 1 with a sacrifice fly.

“I think the bottom of our lineup did a really nice job getting on base,” Aversa said. “It’s just a culmination of everybody putting it on the next guy. We’re trying to do that. We don’t have to hit the four-run bomb. Put it on the next guy. Let him drive the runs in.”

The Cavaliers scored another run in the top of the third when Lorenzi singled home Braylin Bond. But they stranded two more runners and left six on base through the first three innings.

Only two runners reached base in the final two innings. Frey walked Gavin Kallis in the fifth. Reliever Trevor Lupella allowed a single to Jett Hill to start the seventh, but he was erased by a double play.

“It just seemed like, and this is what’s been going on lately, we just can’t get the big hit,” La Salle-Peru coach Matt Gulpczynski said. “We had our couple of opportunities, and sometimes in baseball as games go on when you struggle with not getting the big hit, guys start pressing and trying to do too much or thinking about it too much.”

Hill started and only lasted two innings, but Sowers pitched the final four. He allowed three runs, two earned, and walked one. He struck out two and gave up six hits.

Gulpczynski said Sowers came into a difficult situation down four runs but competed hard.

“He pounded, challenged up and made some good pitches,” Gulpczynski said. “That’s what we’ve been talking about a lot. No matter what the score is, not giving in or rolling over. And that’s what he did.”

The series concludes Wednesday, which will end the I-8 slate for the Cavaliers. The Knights still have to complete a suspended game in Ottawa against the Pirates, a game they trail 2-0 from April 13, before the Knights’ recent hot streak.

Since beating Sycamore on May 1 to salvage the final game of a three-game series, their only loss was to Morris. Baxley said there hasn’t been a specific turning point for the team, just that the team has come together and has been much closer over the last couple of weeks.

Aversa said losing the first two games to Sycamore in a way acted as a wake-up call.

“I think after that Sycamore series, we were kind of like, ‘Hey, where do we want to be?’ ” Aversa said. “Do we want to be the second-, third-, fourth-place team in this conference, or do we want to at the top? And we kind of just made a decision. Like, ‘Hey, we’re just as good as any team in this conference, and we just need to go out and take it.’ ”