Minooka’s Rhett Harris considers himself an instinctual hitter.

But he got away from that in his first three at-bats in Friday’s non-conference game with Lincoln-Way West.

And the results weren’t pretty.

So when Harris went up to the plate in the top of the seventh inning carrying an 0-for-3 day with two strikeouts, he decided to fall back on what he knew he could do.

That method worked as Harris laced a two-out single that pushed across the tying and winning runs in a 4-3 Minooka victory.

“I actually stopped guessing that last at-bat,” Harris said. “My whole life I’ve been a better, instinctual hitter. On that at-bat before when I struck out looking, when they threw that change-up, I was guessing curveball.

“I just stopped thinking too much. I’m better than these guys and I need to go up and prove it.”

It was a needed breakout performance from Harris and although Minooka coach Jeff Petrovic needled him a bit after the game for finally delivering a big hit, it was exactly the right person at the right time for the Indians.

“Rhett’s a great hitter,” Petrovic said. “And you can kid with a kids like that because he doesn’t have anything to prove. He was our leading hitter last year, the kid just hit a ton.

“And he’s off to a little bit of a slow start this year, admittedly, but when you get the right guys up in the right spots they know how to get it done.”

Minooka (12-2) appeared to be backed into a corner trailing 3-2 with the bottom of its order coming up.

But pinch hitter Evan Jenks started things off with a clean single and Gavin McReynolds followed up with a sacrifice to give Minooka two cracks at scoring the tying run from second.

Lincoln-Way West (10-3) coaxed a pop out for the second out of the inning, but after falling behind 3-0 on Minooka’s leadoff hitter Landon Currie he was intentionally walked. Ryan Keener then lashed a ball just out of the reach of the Warrior second baseman. He got a glove on it which was enough to keep the lead runner at third and the Warrior lead intact for a moment.

But that relief lasted just seconds as Harris provided his heroics moments later.

“Early in the game, we seemed to make some mistakes and we weren’t able to overcome them. We actually compounded the problem,” Petrovic said. “And that’s kind of been a little bit of a trend for us lately. We can really use this game as a turning point because we were able to overcome some of that stuff.”

Some of that stuff included a rough first inning for starting pitcher Logan Mackin.

Mackin walked the leadoff batter and then surrendered a two-run homer to Michael Pettitt. He then walked Jackson Mansker and who later came around to score on a throwing error.

But after that ragged inning, Mackin put the clamps down on the Lincoln-Way West offensive attack, scattering four hits over the next five innings before giving way to Kyle Rodak who pitched around a two-out double from Carson Paulas to nail down the win for Minooka.

https://www.shawlocal.com/the-herald-news/2026/03/07/benet-makes-key-plays-when-it-needs-to-in-topping-bolingbrook/