First varsity start.

First walk-off hit.

First time being mobbed by teammates in a professional ballpark.

“It’s awesome,” junior Gavin Stumbaugh said of Wintrust Field in Schaumburg after his walk-off single with two out in the ninth late Tuesday night lifted Burlington Central‘s Rockets to a 5-4 win over Richmond-Burton’s Rockets in a nonconference baseball game between old Big Northern and Kishwaukee River conference rivals.

“The field is like perfect. I was just trying to take advantage of it.”

Stumbaugh’s single capped a long day for the Rockets, who began Tuesday by completing their suspended game against Huntley from Monday. Huntley, which wound up winning 13-6, agreed to travel to Wintrust Field, home of the Frontier League’s Schaumburg Boomers, so Central could then immediately play its originally scheduled game against R-B.

Central (9-12-2) salvaged a split of its two games by rallying to plate single runs in the seventh and eighth innings, before scoring again in the ninth for the Rockets’ second walk-off win of the season.

Central scored in the seventh and eighth without the benefit of a hit, with Liam Schultz’s sacrifice fly tying the score in the eighth.

“We did a nice job of playing for one run when we needed to,” Central coach Kyle Nelson said. “Obviously we’d like to have a few more big innings in there. We definitely left some out there. We needed someone to come up with a big two-out hit. Right now we’re not getting that, so we’re manufacturing runs.”

Dominic Henderson (2 for 4) started Central’s ninth-inning rally with a one-out single against reliever Ray Hannemann. Matt Simek made it back-to-back base hits, and a wild pitch moved up both runners. Trevor Raap bounced into a 5-2 fielder’s choice, putting runners on the corners.

Stumbaugh then hit Hannemann’s first pitch up the middle, easily scoring pinch-runner Thomas Koertgen. The single capped a nearly three-hour game that started 90 minutes late because of the length of the Huntley game.

“Just trying to send us home after playing a good game,” Stumbaugh said.

Stumbaugh has been mainly a relief pitcher this season. But he got the start at third baseman after freshman Alex Mayzer, who was promoted just last week, got hurt against Huntley. Stumbaugh also walked three times and scored the tying run in the eighth.

“He came up big for us,” Nelson said. “It was fun to watch.”

Central hadn’t played R-B (12-10) since it left the KRC to join the Fox Valley Conference in 2019. Nelson and R-B coach Mike Giese have been the head coach at their respective school since 2006, and two count nearly 800 wins combined.

“As you get older as a coach, this is the stuff you appreciate more, when you get to go out and play some of your friends,” Giese said. “He’s done a lot for IHSA baseball, and he’s just a good guy. He organized this tonight, so I was like, ‘Yeah, we’ll show up.’ ”

R-B, which scored three runs in the fifth to go up 3-1 only to surrender two late leads, got two hits, including a two-run single, from Cooper Nagel. Bryce Kowall’s RBI groundout put R-B ahead 4-3 in the eighth.

R-B starter Logan Johnson pitched 5⅓ effective innings, striking out five and allowing two runs.

“It was a good baseball game,” Giese said. “It was good to play BC again. It was a well-pitched game early on, by both [starting] pitchers.”

Central sophomore righty Ashton Binz had a no-hitter through four innings and left the game with a 1-0 lead. Binz went 4⅔ innings, allowing only a swinging bunt single to freshman Lucas Bynum. Reliever Jonathan Andrinopoulos earned the win, allowing two runs in 4⅓ innings with five strikeouts.

Daniel Koertgen singled twice and walked for the winners.

“Our big thing the whole season has been trying to back up the pitchers, and I think we did a good job of that today,” Stumbaugh said. “I think we did a good job this game of coming back in the end with the bats, and I think that’s what won us the game.”