Pirates explode in sixth to decide tight baseball tune-up against Streator

OTTAWA – It’s hard to imagine, really, for two schools that are such intense rivals, but Tuesday afternoon’s baseball contest between Ottawa and Streator was supposed to be just a laid-back, pre-regional workout for the pitchers and hitters from both clubs.

It quickly turned into a tight, scoreless battle with a tense postseason feel … until one got the break it was looking for.

After getting through five innings of opportunities leading to just zeroes on the scoreboard, the Pirates had a sacrifice bunt thrown away at first base, then caught a couple more breaks on close plays at the plate to come away with all their runs and escape from the close encounter with a 5-0 victory at King Field.

Jace Addis got the biggest hit of the rally — in fact, the only one of the frame — to drive in two huge runs in the uprising. Meanwhile on the hill, Addis, Michael Bruner and Anthony Cooper combined to surrender the Bulldogs just four hits for all of the baserunners they had on the day.

Mason Telford took the loss despite joining relievers Payton Benning, Christian Benning and Peyton Phillis in allowing OHS only six hits on the day, two each by Addis and Evan Evola.

The win ups Ottawa’s record to 12-6 heading into their Class 3A regional opener as the No. 4 seed at home against No. 5 Morris on Friday. On that same day, the No. 6-seeded Bulldogs will put their 16-9 mark on the line at No. 3 Galesburg.

“This was a game, added late to just get our pitchers some work before regional, but it turned into a great game and a win, and hopefully into momentum that will carry into Friday,” said Ottawa coach Brent Moore. “It all starts with the first batter getting on base. We get a good sacrifice bunt, and our team’s in a good spot, then we get a break with the error, and things are going our way.

“We feel really good about where we are now. All of our pitchers got in exactly what they needed today, they looked good, they were efficient and in the zone, we played good defense behind them, and we got timely hitting late in the game. A couple good days of practice now and we’ll see what happens on Friday.”

Streator never really threatened offensively, the closest coming in the sixth when No. 9 hitter Sawyer Good slapped a single, was sacrifice to second by Nolan Barr and took third on a flyball by Sean McGurk. However, Bruner worked out of it.

The Pirates loaded the bases in both the first and third innings, but both times came away empty. But in the home half, Cooper led off with a walk and went to third when Adam Weitzel’s sacrifice bunt was thrown away at first base. Ty Trovero walked to load the bases, but John Zytnowski’s grounder forced Cooper at home for the first out, and it appeared Levi Sholders did the same. However, Weitzel beat the wide throw to home.

After Javarius Whitfield, the courtesy runner for Trovero, scored on a wild pitch, Addis singled in a pair of runs and Sholders scored on Luke Cushing’s grounder, but not without drama. On the throw home, the umpire was mute as Streator’s catcher Sean McGurk missed the tag and Sholders had missed the plate. When Sholders noticed the ump’s silence, he touched the plate and was ruled safe to cap the rally.

“We knew coming in it would be this kind of ballgame,” said Streator coach Beau Albert. “Talking to Coach Moore, he was going to throw his 1, 2 and 3, and so were we, for 30 pitches to get them some work. … It was back and forth, a tight ballgame until we had a couple mishaps there in the sixth, and the inning kind of imploded on us. It was a tough call at the plate, but what can you do? We should have been out of the inning with with two out and maybe one run, and we should have limited the damage after that and not allowed four more. Our pitchers all threw well today, but theirs did too.

“I like the way we’re playing right now heading to the regional. … Today we just made the errors that opened the door for them.”