JOLIET – Jimmy Anderson watched with enjoyment as he and his Joliet West teammates stacked up 10 second-innings runs during their game against Joliet Central on Tuesday.

But Anderson didn’t allow the sudden cushion to provide too much comfort. In his view, there still was work to be done.

The junior right-hander kept his focus and narrowly missed tossing a shutout. He needed only one more out, but Joliet Central pushed across two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Still, Joliet West ended the game one inning later by scoring two runs for a 12-2 victory.

“I was able to throw all of my pitches in any count for strikes, so it felt good,” Anderson said. “The runs were nice, but I still wanted to focus on performing my best. I was a little irritated when I gave up those two runs, but I knew we’d get them back, and we did.”

Anderson was able to work with an early cushion thanks to a big second inning from the Tigers (18-9, 6-3 Southwest Prairie), winners of six straight.

Joliet West got hits from the first five batters in the inning, when anything the Tigers put in play seemed to find a hole. The first nine batters reached and scored. When the inning was finally tallied up, the Tigers had scored 10 runs and collected 10 hits.

“Up and down the lineup we hit the ball pretty well.”

—  John Karczewski, Joliet West baseball coach

“Up and down the lineup we hit the ball pretty well,” Joliet West coach John Karczewski said. “It was a good inning and gave us a chance to get some other guys in there to get their licks. We just have to keep it going.”

Matt Marchiniak was the biggest bat for the Tigers during the 10-run inning. He connected for a two-run double in his first at-bat of the inning and added a run-scoring triple on his second trip to the plate.

Joliet West threatened to tack on more runs on several occasions but were unable.

It hardly mattered with Anderson on the mound.

Anderson appeared to be on his way to finishing the shutout after recording his ninth strikeout for the second out of the fifth inning. But Joliet Central’s John Stasiak hit a double to score Noah Whitlock, who reached earlier on an error, and Stasiak would come around to score on a Rodney DeSilva single.

That forced the game into the sixth inning where Albert Del Real relieved Anderson and threw a scoreless inning with two strikeouts. Joliet West finished the game in its half with an RBI groundout from Parker Schwarting and an RBI single from Cael Karczewski.

Joliet Central (9-19, 2-9) got two hits from Robert Fitzpatrick.

Joliet West will go for the season sweep against its rival Thursday with a road game and hopes to keep its recent momentum with the postseason near. The Tigers will find themselves in a loaded Class 4A field.

“We’re getting hot, but in that sectional you gotta get really hot,” Karczewski said. “You gotta do all three phases. You’ve got to throw it, you’ve got to field it and you’ve got to hit it. But our guys, our attitudes are good, and we’re ready to roll.”