Baseball: Somonauk overcomes slow start to top Leland

SOMONAUK – The Somonauk baseball team found itself down five runs to a fired-up Leland squad after the first two innings of Monday’s Little Ten Conference game.

However, the Bobcats were able to regroup and score 13 runs over the next four innings to come away with a 14-7, come-from-behind victory over the Panthers.

“When the first pitch came around today Leland was ready to go, and we were not,” Somonauk coach Troy Felton said. “This is the second game in a row where we made a number of mistakes defensively to help give the other team a lead in the very first inning. We were fortunate today that we were able to get things straightened out after the third inning, but you are living dangerously if you aren’t going to come out ready to go from the first pitch.”

Leland scored three unearned runs off Somonauk starter Aiden Hopkins in the first, with Matt Grzanich recording an RBI groundout and Noah Schultz an RBI single around three Bobcats fielding errors.

After the hosts used a Carson Bahrey single, stolen base and then aggressive running to score on a groundout from second, the Panthers added three more runs in the second. Evin Hensley, Austin Todd, Porter Thrall and Grzanich (RBI) posted consecutive base hits, with Mitchell Henne driving in a run with a ground ball and the third run scoring on an error.

“Aiden Hopkins hasn’t thrown many innings for us yet this season but has looked good in our workouts in the gym. He didn’t have his best stuff, and we didn’t help him out much in the field,” Felton said. “I, unfortunately, had to throw some guys like Silas Johnson and Coleton Eade that I was hoping not to today with our two games with Newark coming up, but that’s how it played out today.”

“Credit Leland, they put the ball in play for much of the game and took advantage of every mistake we made.”

Leland added a run in the third on two more fielding miscues to make it 7-1.

“Today was a huge moral victory for my guys. We need them, and we’ll take them,” Leland coach Chris Bickel said. “We were coming off really getting embarrassed by Hinckley-Big Rock on our home field last Friday. The guys were defeated before we even started that game.

“We had a nice, long talk about how we can’t have that mentality. We came out today with the exact opposite thought process, and it showed in the first three innings. Baseball is a grind, and we needed a game like this, one where we were holding a lead and were trying to hold off a pretty good opponent. We haven’t had a game like today in the past three years where we were the team being chased.”

But from there it was all Bobcats.

In the Bobcats’ third, Bahrey, Justin Lee and Broc Slais knocked in runs off Leland starter Thrall. Somonauk then took the lead for good in the fourth as Will Mosley smacked a two-run double, Bahrey an RBI single and Eade a run-scoring triple to make it 8-7.

The Bobcats tacked on two in the fifth, one on an error and the other on a bases-loaded walk by Eade, and scored four more in the sixth with Aldo Resendez, Mosley and Eade producing RBI at-bats.

Bahrey finished with three hits and two RBIs, with Noah Brandt, Johnson and Aiden Wood each collecting two hits. Eade (2 2/3 IP, 1 H 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K) earned the win in relief.

Thrall and Mitchell Henne both had two hits for Leland, with Thrall picking up the losing decision on the hill.

“We didn’t end up being able to hold that early lead, but now we’ve been in that situation that will hopefully be in a again and know how to handle it better,” Bickel said. “I’m super proud of the effort and positiveness my guys had.”

Somonauk is scheduled to host Newark on Tuesday, and Leland will entertain the Bobcats on Thursday.