Baseball: Johnathon Stunkel’s 2 homers in opening 2 innings propel Putnam County past WFC

RURAL STREATOR – The Putnam County Panthers came to rural Streator on an eight-game losing skid and looking for a spark to get things going in the right direction.

Sophomore shortstop Johnathon Stunkel’s leadoff homer to right-center on the game’s second pitch and grand slam to left-center in the top of the second inning provided that spark perfectly Tuesday, setting the tone in the Panthers’ 11-0, five-inning victory over the host Woodland/Flanagan-Cornell Warriors.

“I was looking for a first-pitch fastball, really,” Stunkel said of his game-opening at-bat. “It was outside, I took a pitch, and then the next one I was just looking for whatever I could smash, you know? I feel like I squared it up pretty well.

“[On the grand slam], I was definitely just trying to stay composed, breathe and just barrel the baseball. It went in my favor, and I hit one out again.”

Stunkel provided half of Putnam County’s 10 runs batted in on the day during his 3-for-4, three-run performance. Drew Carlson (two hits) added two RBIs on a third-inning double, and AJ Furar (two hits) contributed two as well with his second-inning single and third-inning RBI groundout. Jaden Stoddard added two hits and a pair of runs scored, with Traxton Mattingly contributing the other run batted in for PC.

The Panthers (2-8 overall, 1-4 Tri-County Conference) proved to be equally dominant in the bottom halves of innings, where right-hander Miles Main threw five shutout innings with two hits allowed and six strikeouts backed by errorless defense.

“We’ve had the tough run here after winning the first one,” Putnam County coach Chris Newsome said. “So it’s certainly nice when Johnathon can provide that shot in the arm with a leadoff tater like that, and then Miles come in and give us a quick inning defensively.

“He was throwing strikes, I don’t think he walked anybody, and I don’t think we had any errors. It’s a good recipe and a different change of pace, which I think is what we needed.”

Freshman Reece Pelnarsh broke up Main’s perfect-game bid, beating out an infield single to the hole at shortstop to lead of the third. Heads-up baserunning took Pelnarsh to third on a sharp single from junior No. 8 hitter Theron Essman and seemed to have the Warriors (1-5 overall, 0-4 TCC) in business, but an ill-advised caught stealing, shallow fly out and inning-ending strikeout allowed Main to escape unscathed.

“Hopefully, that was going to be our little spark there to try to get a few runs,” WFC coach Dan Essman said of the once-promising third. “One little mistake there again, though, and we kind of fell off the face of the earth. We’ve just got to learn for it. ...

“For some reason our kids sort of got down there after that first home run. It was only 1-0. You try to keep the kids’ heads up, but then it gets from 1-0 to 4-0, 5-0, and we kept struggling as we went.”

Pelnarsh and Theron Essman would be the only Warriors to reach base.

WFC starting pitcher Sam Schmitz (2 IP, 7 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 3 K) suffered the pitching loss before being relieved by Dylan Jenkins (3 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 2 K). The Warriors highlight on the day came in the fourth on what was colloquially referred to as a Lawrence Welk double play – ”and-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-three,” as the singer used to say, in reference to the pitcher, catcher and first baseman’s scorecard designations – to get out of a bases-loaded jam.

The Warriors are scheduled to visit the Panthers in Granville to complete the Tri-County series Thursday. In between, Putnam County is set to host Sterling Newman on Wednesday.