For an Ottawa baseball team that rode a heater to a share of the 2026 Interstate 8 Conference championship, Tuesday’s 12-4 home win over Route 23 rival Streator was just another milepost happily passed on what’s been one heck of a fun end-of-season ride.

“It’s been amazing,” said Ottawa center fielder Aleixo Fernandez, who singled, tripled, scored two runs and drove home three more in Tuesday’s win at King Field. “We’ve been on a roll. We’ve been hot, and we’re looking to keep it going.

“We’ve got guys bringing energy, and it gets all of us going. We start having good at-bats, and, I don’t know, it just starts all flowing from there, hitting the ball well and scoring runs.”

The Pirates – now 17-11-1 on the spring – have won seven straight and 12 of their last 14.

In Tuesday’s triumph, it was Fernandez, Rory Moore (single, two RBIs) and the red-hot Adam Swanson (single, double, homer, five RBIs) keeping the Pirates’ good thing going. Swanson opened the scoring with a leadoff homer just inside the right-field foul pole to start off the bottom of the first inning and another big day for the Pirates offense.

“We were kind of worried about today after an emotional win last night [over Kaneland to secure a share of the I-8 title],” Pirates coach Levi Ericson said. “The energy was just different today ... but when Adam comes out and hits a solo home run to start the game, that kind of sparks everything.”

Ottawa added three unearned runs in the second before a seven-run third helped along by three Bulldogs’ errors answered Streator’s two-run top of the third and chased Bulldogs starting pitcher Clay Christoff.

It also gave Ottawa’s four pitchers on the day – starter Colt Bryson (3 IP, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 H, 3 BB, 5 K) and relievers Noah Marvin (win, 1 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 BB, 2 K), Jack Carroll (1 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 1 BB, 2 K) and George Shumway (2 IP, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K) – a lot more cushion than they would require.

While Ottawa has been rolling since late April, Streator – now 8-17-1 – has been going in the opposite direction. The Bulldogs have now dropped four straight and eight of their past 10 ballgames.

“The inning [Ottawa] scored seven,” said Streator coach Beau Albert, “it starts off with a couple walks, we don’t make two routine plays, we had an out at the plate, an out at first and threw the ball away. You can’t give a good team a big inning like that. It’s hard to come back.

“I wasn’t too upset with a lot of the at-bats we had except for the strikeouts early with runners in scoring position. We’ve got to do something with that [situation].

“We’ve talked about [these things] all year. We’ve got to adjust and fix it, or we’re going to keep doing the same things and hope for a different result. It’s not going to be a good result. We’ve just got to start with tomorrow’s game .... find a way to have fun playing baseball and see if we can’t get on a roll.”

Keegan Gassman (1⅓ IP, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 2 K), Maddan McCloskey (1⅔ IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K) and Isaac Melvin (⅓ IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 BB, 1 K) were effective in relief of Christoff (loss, 2⅔ IP, 11 R, 5 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 2 K) in a nonconference matchup both coaches treated as a bullpen game of sorts to get their pitching staffs lined up for next week’s regionals.

Despite scoring a couple runs in the sixth, Streator never truly threatened after Ottawa broke it open with the seven-run third.

Christoff with an RBI fielder’s choice, a single and a run-scoring double was the Bulldogs’ top hitter. Cole Winterrowd added an RBI double, and Isaac Fowler scored a pair of runs from the No. 9 spot in the order.