Baseball: Michael Hilker dials it back in, deals Yorkville to win at Oswego

OSWEGO – Michael Hilker peered in to get the signs from his catcher through prescription eyeglasses, a new look for the Yorkville senior pitcher.

He was still the same dominant Hilker.

The Foxes’ ace came down with an eye infection Sunday. It pushed his start back this week and prevents him from wearing contacts for the foreseeable future.

[ Photos: Yorkville vs. Oswego baseball ]

That did not stop Hilker from doing on Wednesday what he’s done all season. He threw six shutout innings, striking out seven, and retired the last 11 batters he faced in Yorkville’s tidy 6-0 win over Oswego.

“I was feeling pretty good those last couple innings. The first couple innings I had to adjust with the glasses,” said Hilker, a Wisconsin-Whitewater commit, who allowed two hits and walked one. “It was nice to be able to get into a rhythm, getting guys to swing and miss and guys were able to make plays. The pitch count was a little high for the first few innings, so it was nice to settle in.”

Oswego (14-12, 7-7) put runners on in each of the first three innings off Hilker (7-1). A one-out error in the third put runners on the corners with Yorkville ahead 1-0.

But Hilker retired the last two batters of the inning, and the Foxes’ bats came alive with three runs in the fourth and two in the fifth.

With the lead, Hilker dialed it in and was on cruise control.

“To be honest that’s how he’s been most of the year. It’s been rare to see him struggle which he did the first couple innings,” Yorkville coach Tom Cerven said. “Once he dialed it back in he started spotting his pitches and he’s just so tough. Nothing overpowering, the ability to locate pitches the way he can, it’s tough for a high school hitter to hit that consistently.”

And Hilker doesn’t mess around with the lead, going right at batters and working fast.

“That’s what we love about him,” Cerven said. “He’s a kid that takes the ball, when he needs to make an adjustment he does and he turns to his defense. He’s not going to nibble a lot and walk some guys.”

Hilker’s counterpart, Oswego senior Joey Cecola, probably deserved a better fate. Cecola only allowed four hits in four innings of work, striking out five. But he was hurt by two errors behind him, and hit two batters and balked in a run in Yorkville’s three-run fourth.

Oswego’s loss was its fourth straight, after winning six in a row.

“Any time Joey goes out there we know we’re going to get a battle. He deserved better,” Oswego coach Joe Giarrante said. “We had some defensive lapses and you can’t do that against a solid hitting team.”

Nate Harris went 3 for 4 with two doubles, the first of them starting Yorkville’s three-run rally in the fourth, and Matthew Bivens was 2 for 3 with a double and reached base three times for the Foxes (28-4, 12-2).

Yorkville left the bases loaded in the third, but Connor Corrigan delivered a big two-out, two-run single in the fourth for a 4-0 lead to blow the game open.

The Foxes have played well all year, but seem to be peaking at the right time.

Yorkville has won nine straight conference games, scored 43 runs in a three-game sweep of Minooka last week to take control of the conference race and clinched its first Southwest Prairie West title with Monday’s 11-1 win over Oswego.

“You don’t sweep a program like that very often,” said Cerven, a Minooka graduate himself. “To sweep Minooka like that, and to play the way we have in conference is pretty remarkable. It’s a credit to our pitching depth, our defense in every game and the last couple weeks our bats started to get hot at the right time. It’s all coming together at the right time.”

Hilker certainly hopes so.

One of 12 Yorkville seniors, he remembers all too well last year’s run to a sectional final that ended in devastating fashion, a seventh-inning meltdown in a loss to eventual state champion Plainfield East.

The Foxes, No. 1 seed in the Class 4A Romeoville Sectional, are set up to make their own history starting next week.

“Absolutely, that is something we’ve been harping on all season is end of the season and winning games,” Hilker said. “I think we have set ourselves up in a pretty good position to win baseball games. We can look on these past couple games and be excited about the next couple weeks.”