Baseball: VanDyke, Morris shut out Plano on road

PLANO – It’s quite normal at any level of baseball for a starting pitcher to tire and lose some velocity as the game goes on.

That was not the case for Morris senior hurler Landon VanDyke Monday during an Interstate Eight Conference battle against Plano.

VanDyke seemed to get stronger and stronger as the game wore on, striking out seven of the 10 batters he faced throughout the middle three innings to help Morris earn a 3-0 shutout victory and its ninth consecutive win at Reaper Field in Plano.

The right-hander upped his record to 4-2, and his team’s to 16-3 and a perfect 9-0 in league play by tossing six strong innings, throwing 97 pitches – 59 of which were strikes – with eight strikeouts and three walks.

“At first, I started off a little rough, walked a couple of batters, and then I settled down and my confidence was very solid from there,” VanDyke said. “I just bumped it up in the middle of the game and knew I had my best stuff at that point, so I did feel like I got a lot stronger as I moved along.”

Morris is now tied with Sycamore – also 9-0 – at the top of the I-8 standings with five conference games left for each team as VanDyke provided an outstanding outing on the hill.

“About the fifth inning, I turned to one of my assistant coaches and I thought [VanDyke] was getting tougher to hit as the game got longer,” Morris coach Todd Kein said. “What a great sign at this point in the season for him. He threw his curveball very effectively, and that made his fastball so much better when he went with it.

“But credit to Plano, because they really played well today behind their pitcher, who had a great day too.”

The Reapers (3-16, 1-7) got a strong pitching performance from junior left-handed starter Kaden Aguirre (2-4), who threw seven innings and allowed eight hits, striking out six and walking two.

“I thought Kaden was excellent today on the mound, but we couldn’t get anything going against the Morris pitcher,” Plano coach Nate Hill said. “He mixed up his sequences a little bit, had us chasing his curveball early in the count, and our guys were a bit off-balance against him all day. Hats off to him for finding a good rhythm in the middle of the game and mixing it up well on us.”

Morris touched Aguirre for its first run of the game in the top of the second inning, when sophomore Griffin Zweeres launched a 1-0 pitch off a tree in deep left field for his fifth home run of the season that put the visitors ahead 1-0.

“I got a great pitch to turn on, and it felt really good coming off the bat,” Zweeres said. “With Landon pitching so well, I hoped that was all we’d need to win this one.”

That proved to be the case, as sophomore Ximi Baftiri (two hits) added a run-scoring single in the top of the fifth as Morris went ahead 2-0.

Junior A.J. Zweeres then plated senior Will Knapp (two hits) with a sacrifice fly in the top of the sixth to give Morris its final run.

All that was left was for VanDyke to hold Plano down in the bottom of the frame, and junior reliever Zach Smolkovich to come on in the bottom of the seventh to earn his second save of the season by sitting down Plano in order, with two strikeouts.

“It feels so great to be undefeated so far in conference,” VanDyke said. “But we’ve got a lot of work to do yet if we want to be conference champions.”