Baseball: McHenry goes from bad practice to good game with win over Harlem

McHENRY – McHenry coach Brian Rockweiler, displeased at the Warriors’ lack of focus, excused them about 45 minutes early from Tuesday’s practice.

One day later, the Warriors earned their way back into Rockweiler’s good graces with a strong pitching and defensive performance in a 4-0 nonconference victory over Harlem on Wednesday at McHenry’s sparkling new home field.

“Today helped. Hopefully, they can keep that same attitude and effort for the rest of the season,” Rockweiler said. “They threw phenomenal considering it’s pretty cold out. All three pitchers threw the ball well.”

Brandon Shannon, Kaden Wasniewski and Ryan Nagel shut down the Huskies (1-3) on four hits – two infield singles and two bloops just over infielders’ heads – and the Warriors (2-0) were flawless on defense behind them.

“We did a great job,” said Nagel, who pitched the seventh. “Our pitching staff has been really good these past two games. It’s nice to see that early on in the season and we’ll develop further. Shannon was shoving, we have a good defense behind them. They have faith that if they throw strikes, we’ll get them the outs that they need.”

Nagel said the Warriors were not ready to be done with Tuesday’s practice when Rockweiler ordered them off the field. They did baserunning and hit fungos on an adjacent soccer field for what would have been the rest of practice.

“We came out and got a win on a cold day,” Nagel said. “However you get them on those days, you get them. Take what you can get.”

Shannon threw three hitless innings, then issued a walk, an infield hit and another walk in the fourth to load the bases but got Harlem’s Tristan Bell on a called third strike.

“I took a few relaxing breaths, got off the mound and really tried to bring my best stuff,” Shannon said. “I threw a fastball [for the third strike]. My fastball was working really well today. I felt like our pitching staff did really well today.”

McHenry scratched out three runs in the third when Kamrin Borck and Jeffry Schwab drew walks and leadoff man Jack Stecker bunted for a sacrifice. Huskies pitcher Gabe Solorzano threw low to first base and Stecker was safe, with one run scoring.

Nagel was hit by a pitch to load the bases and the Warriors came through with good situational hitting as Owen Micklinghoff and Connor McLean picked up RBIs on ground balls.

Donovan Christman doubled in McLean in the sixth inning for McHenry’s last run.

Wasniewski, a freshman who has hit 90 mph on speed guns, pitched two scoreless innings, but started the sixth with a walk and an infield hit. Harlem sacrifice bunted those runners over, but Wasniewski struck out Finn Stovall and got Koletyn Zanoni on a grounder to second base.

“I tried to attack the hitters and throw strikes,” Wasniewski said. “I attacked [Stovall] with fastballs early and got him with a slider. It’s going well. It’s really fun to play with [the varsity].”

Wasniewski had three scoreless innings in McHenry’s two games.

Solorzano struck out three, walked two and allowed only four hits for Harlem. Two Huskies errors were crucial.

“Gabe kind of struggled his last time out, but he pounded the zone today and worked his two-seam [fastball] and seemed to get their hitters off-balance,” Huskies coach Scott McCloy said. “They were chopping the ball and hitting it back to the pitcher. He threw pretty well today.

“He struggled against Burlington on Friday and we gave him another chance and he shows he deserves to be part of the rotation. If we don’t make the mistakes in the third inning and sixth inning it would have been closer than that.”