To ace its second test in four days, Huntley turned to its ace.

One of them.

“We got about seven guys that we can throw out there each day,” Red Raiders coach Andy Jakubowski said. “We have six or seven guys with 20-plus innings [pitched].”

Nate Larson is one of them, and while the junior left-hander has been reliable all season, he might have been at his best Monday. Larson pitched five-plus innings of two-hit ball, striking out 10, as visiting Huntley defeated defending Fox Valley Conference champion McHenry 7-3.

“He was tough,” Warriors coach Brian Rockweiler said of Larson. “He threw multiple pitches for strikes, and he competed.”

The Raiders’ victory, coupled with their 5-3 win over the Warriors on Friday, forged a tie atop the FVC standings. Huntley (24-4) and McHenry (24-5-1) are both 13-3 in the conference, with two FVC games remaining for each team.

McHenry hosts Crystal Lake Central on Wednesday and visits the Tigers on Friday. Huntley visits Hampshire on Wednesday and hosts the Whip-Purs on Friday.

“We went into the game on Friday knowing that we needed to win if we wanted to get a share of the Fox Valley Conference title,” Larson. “We just went one game at a time. We knew this game mattered just as much as Friday. We know the importance of each game.”

If both teams finish tied for first place, they will share the conference championship, despite Huntley’s season sweep. Third-place Prairie Ridge (10-5 FVC) is two games back in the loss column.

“Baseball’s hard,” said McHenry center fielder Carver Cohn, who went 0 for 2 with two walks and a run scored, and shined defensively. “We got beat today. We got beat on Friday. It happens. I think the mindset moving forward is that we’re the best team on the field and conference is still ours until it’s not. We just want to play good baseball and win.”

Larson didn’t make it easy for the Warriors. McHenry’s top three hitters – Landon Clements, Cohn and Kaden Wasniewski – are as good as it gets in the FVC, and all three players struck out in the first inning.

“I’ve grown up playing against those guys, with those guys, I play for the same program as them [GRB Rays Illinois], and I talk to them all the time,” Larson said of Clements, Cohn and Wasniewski. “I think going out there and doing that for my team to get us all amped up was huge. I had a feel for everything. I just thought it was huge to go out there and set the tone.”

Larson struck out the side again in the second, despite allowing back-to-back singles to Bennet Baumann and Jeffry Schwab.

“Nate pitched like an ace today,” Jakubowski said. “He was incredible.”

Huntley’s offense went to work in the third against left-hander Nathan Neidhardt (five innings, three runs, all earned). The Raiders scored on Kyle Ziebell’s RBI double and Brady Klepfer’s run-scoring single.

Leo Bianchin added an RBI single in the fifth, and Huntley broke open the game in the sixth to make the score 7-0. Aiden Eicklemann lifted a sacrifice fly, Klepfer singled home his second and third runs of the game, and Bianchin (3 for 4) finished the four-run inning with an RBI groundout.

Klepfer had two of Huntley’s three stolen bases in the game.

“We had to put pressure on them,” Jakubowski said. “We started hitting and running a little bit more, delayed stealing, straight stealing, showed safety. We threw the whole kitchen sink at them, and our guys executed for the most part.”

Larson threw 88 pitches, which Jakubowski said is probably the most thrown by any of his starters this season.

Pitching depth is one reason why the Raiders are in position to win their eighth FVC title since 2017 and first since 2024. Jakubowski said he likes to keep his starters’ pitch counts down so they’re fresher for the postseason.

The Raiders would have scored more runs if not for Cohn’s defense in center field. The sophomore robbed Gavin Rettberg of what would have been an RBI hit in the first by making a diving catch in left-center. Cohn then threw to second base to double off the runner.

In the sixth, Cohn threw out a runner at home.

His defense, however, couldn’t help the Warriors overcome two errors, seven walks and only three hits through six innings.

“We got to get better,” Rockweiler said. “Friday, they beat us. Today, they beat us. They probably beat us worse than what the scoreboard actually said. We got to get back to work tomorrow and try to get better at some things.”