Leading off the top of the second inning Tuesday, Lincoln-Way East‘s Rocco Triolo faced off against Joliet Catholic pitcher Rocco Szembalan.

Triolo got the best of the Rocco a Rocco battle, launching a pitch over the fence in left-center to put the Griffins ahead. Later in the inning, No. 9 hitter Ryne Pearson delivered a two-run single to put the Griffins up three. That was more than enough for pitchers Owen Lense, AJ Laurencell and Ryan Harris as Lincoln-Way East came away with a 4-2 nonconference victory.

“I’ve been seeing the ball pretty well lately,” Triolo said. “I just want to stay with my approach and be aggressive. I know if I don’t get a hit that my teammates will pick me up, so I can just go up there and let it rip.

“We did a lot of prep in the offseason, and we felt like we could be pretty good. I didn’t think we’d be 16-1, but I thought we would be pretty good.”

If the Griffins (16-1) keep getting pitching performances like they did Tuesday, especially from Harris, that record could become even more gaudy.

Harris, a sophomore, came on in relief in the bottom of the fourth with two outs, two runners on and the Griffins holding a 4-2 lead. All he did after he got to the mound was retire all 10 batters he faced, four on strikeouts.

East needed that pitching performance, as Joliet Catholic (6-10) got one just as good.

The Griffins scored a run in the top of the first when Casey Mikrut (2 for 4, two doubles) led off with a double, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by Evan Riif. In the second, Triolo led off with a homer. An out later, Keegan Crabtree singled, and Jacob Newman doubled to left-center, putting runners on second and third. Pearson then singled through the middle to score both Crabtree and courtesy runner Curtiss Crossley.

“I like coming through at the bottom of the order,” Pearson said. “At the start of the year I was hitting fourth, in a power spot, but I struggled and sat a few games. When I came back, I was hitting ninth. My approach doesn’t change. If I come up in a big spot with runners on base, I want to put a barrel on it and put it in play.

“We feel pretty good with Ryan Harris on the mound. He’s only a sophomore, but I have played with him for a while, and he has that tough mindset.”

Mikrut followed with another double to put runners on second and third with one out, but Szembalan got out of the inning with a strikeout and a popup. He allowed a leadoff single to Cooper Johnson in the top of the fourth. That was the last baserunner the Griffins had.

Szembalan retired the next six batters he faced before giving way to fellow senior Jacob Wojciechowski. Wojciechowski retired all nine of the batters he faced, striking out four, making it 15 straight retired by JCA pitching.

“You never know how the flow of a game is going to go,” Lincoln-Way East coach John McCarthy said. “We scored a run in the first three batters of the game, but JCA threw two really good arms at us today. That was a great challenge, and this was a great game with a playoff type of atmosphere.

“Rocco Triolo is really swinging a hot bat right now, and he’s one of many we have that can do damage. Casey Mikrut has been doing that all year. He’s just a hitting machine.

“We are taking things one game at a time, and we have to keep getting better.”

For JCA, it was a game in which there were plenty of positives, except for the final score.

“We played solid,” Hilltoppers coach Jared Voss said. “Rocco and Woj threw the ball really well. We’re just a little light on firepower offensively. We’ve had a lot of injuries and have a couple of freshman starting.

“We understand that a baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. We still have our best baseball ahead of us.”