Herscher’s Payten Young no-hits Peotone, Tigers win ICE finale

HERSCHER − The best conference season for the Herscher baseball team in seven years ended with an exclamation point Tuesday.

Senior Payten Young tossed a no-hitter for the Tigers in their Illinois Central Eight Conference finale against Peotone, outdueling the Blue Devils’ Josh Barta to lead the team to a 1-0 win for their 11th ICE victory of the season.

The Tigers (28-5, 11-3 ICE) wrap conference play in second place behind Wilmington (20-7, 13-1) and are nearing the end of their winningest season since 2018’s 33-9 mark, a season that included the program’s most recent sectional title and a fourth-place finish at state.

For Peotone (9-17, 3-11) Tyler Leitelt reached on an error to lead off the top of the first. The only other player to reach base off Young was Joe Hasse, who was hit by a pitch to lead off the second and walked to lead off the fifth. Thanks to an out on the bases in the first and a double play in the second, Young faced the minimum through four innings. After Hasse reached in the fifth, Young retired the final nine batters in order to finish off the no-hitter.

“We had an error at the start of the game, but we really picked it up from there and were completely clean after that,” Young said. “My catcher [Keegan Andre] is a wall back there. I don’t have to worry about anyone getting to second base or third base.

“I just had all my stuff working, felt good, and just have a lot of confidence with the guys around me.”

Coach Eric Regez also said the sure-handed defense came up big behind Young, who did a good job working through occasional command issues.

“I thought our defense played well behind Payten after the first batter of the game,” he said. “He was able to figure out his control there, worked some strike ones and got some of their key hitters out.”

The Tigers got all the run support Young needed in the bottom of the sixth, although it was shaping up to be a much bigger inning. After a Tanner Jones single, a Logan Egerton double and an intentional walk issued to Nash Brubaker, the bases were loaded with no outs and Young stepping to the plate.

Young hit the ball hard to center, but Peotone’s Alex Chenoweth caught it and fired a strike to catcher Everett Carder to nab the tagging Jones at home. With the rally suddenly in danger, Alec Nicholas stepped in and singled to right, driving in Egerton for the game’s only run.

“You’re not going to score double figures every game,” Regez said. “When you don’t, you’ve got to try to scramble, you’ve got to try to scratch out any runs you can get. Then Alec had the big hit there in the sixth. It’s always good to go ahead in the sixth inning and put your defense in a position to win the game.”

Herscher was not the only team to benefit from strong defense. After committing seven errors in Monday’s 14-2 home loss to Herscher, the Peotone defense played errorless baseball behind Barta on Tuesday, even though Herscher put the ball in play often, posting eight hits and just two strikeouts.

“Going from yesterday making seven errors to today making zero, we made it an emphasis after the game yesterday that that can’t happen again,” Peotone coach Teddy Baffes said. “We needed to make sure we had good communication, who knows where to be in certain situations.

“Today we cleaned that up, and it showed at the end of the day.”

Peotone has one regular-season game left after Tuesday, while Herscher has two before postseason play begins. The Tigers are coming off a regional title last season and a trip to the Sweet 16, and Young said the team is heading into the postseason with the trust they can find more success.

“We have a lot of confidence,” he said. “We feel like we can beat anyone, and we’re ready for the postseason, carrying this over.”