Ottawa bounces back, tops Kaneland, snaps 3-game skid

OTTAWA — The Ottawa baseball team was looking to get back on track during Wednesday’s Interstate 8 Conference game against Kaneland after dropping three straight contests, including a 10-run rule road loss to the Knights on Monday.

The Pirates were able to break a tie with four runs in the fourth inning and then held off a seventh-inning rally by the Knights to even the three-game series with a 7-4 victory at the King Field ball diamond.

“This was a very nice bounce-back game for us,” Ottawa coach Levi Ericson said, his squad now 9-5 overall and 1-1 in league play. “We had losses against Washington and Minooka last week where both games were tied going into the seventh. Then Monday at their place, there’s not really words to explain how that went. The message after Monday’s game and [Tuesday] at practice was we need to get to the team we are and let’s right the ship.”

Ottawa scored single runs in the first two innings off Kaneland starter Evan Ross on an RBI double down the right field line by Brendyn Fuchs and a run-scoring single through a drawn-in infield by Harry Carretto.

“Props to the guys for bouncing back today,” Ericson said. “They came out bats swinging right from the start, defense was pretty good, and other than a few more walks than I’d like to see, but our pitchers pitched really well.”

Kaneland (9-3, 1-1) tied the game in the fourth on back-to-back RBI singles by Carter Grabowski and Tom Thill off Ottawa’s Lucas Farabaugh (3⅔ IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 2 K).

The Pirates then grabbed the lead for good in their half of the fourth as Carretto poked a sacrifice fly to make it 3-2 before Adam Swanson, Fuchs and Jackson Mangold delivered run-scoring base hits to make it 7-2.

“I just try to clear my head before every at-bat, a fresh start, but yeah, it’s not often you come up and the infield is playing in like my first at-bat,” said Carretto, who finished with two hits, two stolen bases and made a couple of nifty catches in left field. “My only focus was to put the ball in play any way I could in my first two times up. I was able to get a fastball inner half and was able to pull the ball in the hole on the first one. It felt great to come through in those situations.

“I felt like after a few guys got hits in the first couple innings it was just a confidence builder for the rest of the game. We didn’t play well at all on Monday, so we all wanted to come out here today and show how we can really play. It’s nice to get back in the win column for sure.”

In the top of the seventh, Kaneland scored twice after consecutive singles by Kanon Baxley and Aidan Whildin started the frame, but Pirates reliever Noah Marvin (Win, 3⅓ IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K) was able to close the door.

Fuchs finished the day with three of Ottawa’s 13 hits, while Swanson, Jacob Rosetto and Colt Bryson all had two hits each.

Baxley and Whildin both had two hits apiece for Kaneland.

“We didn’t bring the energy today,” Kaneland coach Brian Aversa said. “We were very lazy on defense and didn’t have a collective good approach at the plate. There were a lot of things we did wrong today, and they bit us in the butt. These guys know better, we have a young team, but they all know better. They know we didn’t play like we should have.

“All that said, credit Ottawa in every way. We knew Monday wasn’t indicative of what that are capable of doing. Today we were able to tie things up after falling behind, but Ottawa responded right back, and we didn’t answer the second time.”

Kaneland is scheduled to host Ottawa in the final game of the three-game series at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.