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HERSCHER − Just 24 hours after taking a tough, extra-inning loss to Herscher, the Manteno baseball club bounced back Tuesday to take down the Tigers and earn a split in the Illinois Central Eight Conference series.
Herscher (24-5, 9-3 ICE) took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but the Panthers (16-5, 8-4 ICE) scored seven runs in the top of the second and added one more in the third to go up 8-1.
The Tigers clawed back and made it a one-run game on a two-run home run from Logan Egerton with two outs in the seventh, but Manteno’s Braden Campbell followed up that home run with a strikeout to give the Panthers an 8-7 win.
Campbell looked sharp to open the seventh, striking out the first two batters before a close call on an infield single from Tanner Jones kept the inning alive. Campbell said he did not let himself get shaken, even after Egerton’s home run brought the tying run to the plate.
“I felt good on the mound the whole game,” he said. “That final inning, I’ve been in situations like that before. So I wasn’t nervous or anything. I just kept doing what I was doing.”
Manteno head coach Matt Beckner said he thought Campbell did a good job battling a dangerous Herscher lineup that has averaged just over nine runs per game this season.
“He’s a competitor, and he had all three of his pitches working tonight,” Beckner said. “Spotting, locating and just competing. He was challenging hitters. A guy hit one over the fence in the seventh inning, it is what it is, and he comes back and strikes the next guy out.”
Campbell also went 2 for 4 with a double, an RBI and a run scored. Jake Stevens was 1 for 4 with a three-run home run that started the scoring in the second inning, while Jake Wendling was 1 for 2 with a double and two RBIs.
Beckner said he was happy to see the team play well Tuesday after Monday’s tough loss. In that game, the score was tied 5-5 after seven innings before Manteno allowed Herscher to score six times in the top of the eighth, seeing a winnable conference game slip away.
“I thought we were very resilient today,” he said. “We easily could’ve laid down after the game we had yesterday.”
Despite that loss, Campbell said the team did a good job keeping a positive outlook heading out to Tuesday’s game looking for a bounce-back performance.
“We were all on the bus having a good time, coming out excited,” he said. “We carried that energy onto the field, so I was pretty proud of how we did.”
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For Herscher, the loss snapped a six-game winning streak. The Tigers had won 12 of their previous 13 games after taking a pair of ICE losses to first-place Wilmington on April 14 and 15.
While the Tigers managed to limit damage the rest of the way after that rough second inning thanks to a strong relief appearance from Gaige Brown, the deficit proved just a bit too big to overcome.
“They had one great inning in the second inning,” head coach Eric Regez said. “Whatever we tried, we couldn’t get them out, and that was pretty much the game right there. We chipped away, chipped away and made it interesting toward the end. But they were in control pretty much the whole way.”
As for Brown, the sophomore came in to start the fourth inning and immediately locked in. He struck out the side in order in the fourth, worked another 1-2-3 inning in the fifth, walked one batter in a scoreless sixth and was perfect again in the seventh. In total, he struck out seven batters over four hitless innings.
“Sometimes in high school you bring in a guy in relief, and it doesn’t make things better, doesn’t make things improve,” Regez said. “For him, he did a good job to keep us in the game and allowed us to come back.”
Egerton finished the game 1 for 4 with a home run, three RBIs and a run. Jones was 2 for 4 with an RBI and three runs, while Payten Young was 2 for 2 with two doubles and an RBI.