Baseball: St. Charles East plays long ball, blasts past Geneva to tighten grip on DuKane lead

Although St. Charles East batters slugged four home runs in its 15-4 rout of Geneva Saturday, coach Len Asquini was more impressed with the inning his squad scored five runs on singles, walks, errors and a hit batsman.

The win raised the Saints conference record to 11-0 and tightened their grip on first place in the DuKane Conference. Overall, the Saints are 14-1-1.

“We manufactured and took advantage of what they gave us,” Asquini said of the five-run fourth inning. “That’s good stuff too. You can’t rely on the home run all the time.”

The visiting Saints homered in the first, second, third and fifth innings, all from the top of the order. In addition to home runs, Clay Jensen, Dom LeBlanc, Jake Zitella and Seth Winkler, the first four batters in the lineup, rapped out six additional hits and scored 12 of the team’s runs.

“We squared up some balls today across the lineup. We hit some balls really hard and well,” Asquini said. “The top of the order has been really good so far this year.”

The first two Saints batters reached base on Geneva (10-7, 7-4) miscues in the top of the fourth. Four of the next five hitters drove in runs on singles, a ground out and a sacrifice fly.

Asquini thought the rally was a good experience for when the baseball is harder to hit.

“You have a kid on the mound and you’re not seeing the ball real well one day. You’ve got a guy on third base with less than two outs, and you can push the ball past the pitcher and score a run,” the Saints coach said. “That is great stuff for us.”

He also thought Mike Sharko’s at-bat in the frame was another good learning experience for his team. The junior outfielder drew a bases-loaded walk to score the final run of the inning.

“Here we are with the bases loaded and (Sharko) doesn’t chase balls. He has discipline at the plate and it’s ball four.”

Zitella scored East’s first two runs of the game, with a blast to left center in the first inning. LeBlanc followed with a 2-run shot in the second and Winkler opened the third with solo home run.

Jensen had the last Saints homer, another solo shot to lead off the fifth inning. The junior finished the day going 3-for-3 with a double in the second and a single in the third.

“I changed my approach. I stopped dipping and just tried to hit a ball to the opposite field,” Jensen said of his 3-hit day.

Left-hander Gavin Sitarz earned the win, giving up three runs on three hits in five innings.

“I settled in the first inning and started throwing my curve ball and fastball for strikes so I continued to attack with those two pitches,” said Sitarz.

Geneva coach Brad Wendell hopes his team also learns from the Saints’ fourth.

“We’ve got to learn from it,” Wendell said. “We’ve got to be better. Specifically, when we make something happen against a pretty good arm. We are down 6-1 and we get two runs (in the third) and then we can’t shut the door (in the fourth) and get back into the dugout to hit. Our guys got to step up and make plays.”

Geneva honored former baseball coach Kevin Gannon by having him throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game. Gannon, who is retiring from Geneva at the end of this year, led the Vikings from 1992 to 2000. His teams won 135 games in that span putting him in second place for most wins by a Geneva baseball coach. Gannon’s 1996 squad was the first Vikings baseball team to win more than 20 games in a season with a mark of 24-9.

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