While Ryan Eiermann rightfully gets most of the publicity surrounding Naperville Central’s pitching staff, he’s by far not the only quality arm at Mike Stock’s disposal.
With first place at the midway point of the DuPage Valley Conference schedule at stake, a trio of Eiermann’s understudies got a chance to shine.
On a beautiful Saturday in Aurora, Naperville Central took control of the DVC race courtesy of a doubleheader sweep of Waubonsie Valley that had pitching written all over it.
Six scoreless innings from Tyler Brinker in a 2-0 Game 1 shutout of the Warriors set the stage for Zac Bianucci and Liam Heath to help keep the Warriors’ bats at bay in a 6-3, eight-inning victory.
Courtesy of the sweep and Wheaton North’s loss to Metea Valley on Saturday, Naperville Central (16-4, 10-2) is the only DVC team with two losses.
“Going against them, I just wanted to really keep the ball low,” Brinker said. “Wanted to keep it away. The umpire looked like he had given us a couple strikes outside. So I wanted to really work outside, keep it low. That was basically what I was trying to do – throw a lot of off-speed.”
After Brinker (2-0) was done after allowing just four hits while striking out four, Heath came in to slam the door with a perfect seventh to cap the 2-0 victory in Game 1 for Naperville Central.
Heath threw two innings of hitless relief during Game 2 after Bianucci went the first five innings and allowed two runs on five hits while fanning five.
For the Michigan State-bound Bianucci, Saturday’s start marked an opportunity to get back on track after struggling against Neuqua Valley and Metea Valley.
“He’s a No. 2 or No. 3 – we don’t know yet between him and Brinker,” Redhawks’ catcher Jack Hughes said of Bianucci, “but he’s had a couple rough outings before and it’s just awesome to see him battle back like that. It just shows how hard of a worker he is.”
Heath earned his fourth victory of the season in large part to Hughes’ day at the plate.
After getting one of two singles to start the seventh in Game 1, Hughes came into score on Michael Nerger’s two-run single off Warriors’ reliever Jacob Hennessy.
Then with Game 2 tied at 2-2 in the top of the eighth, his bloop RBI single gave the Redhawks a 3-2 lead.
Hughes’ ability to find a hole was the catalyst to a four-run uprising in the eighth for the Redhawks, including a two-run double from Gabe Soria.
“Game 1, (Jason) Neville – he was throwing first-pitch curve a lot of the time – so I was sitting curve, and I just wanted to put a good swing on it, barrel it up and it got put in the outfield,” Hughes said. “The second one, same type of approach. I’m just trying to get a base hit. I wasn’t trying to swing too hard, swing for the fences.”
With two hits in Game 1, Eiermann was one of three Redhawks to record at least two hits in one of the two games – with Beau Buchanan and Noah Cinzio joining him with two hits apiece in Game 2.
For Waubonsie Valley (11-7, 6-6), which had designs of working its way back into the conference race this weekend fell back to .500 because of dominant pitching.
But Neville and Quinton Zielke did their best to help the Warriors keep pace with Brinker, Heath and Bianucci.
Neville and Zielke combined to go 13 2/3 innings for Bryan Acevedo’s charges and allowed no earned runs while striking out 17.
While Neville picked up a tough no-decision after six scoreless innings and 10 strikeouts in Game 1, Zielke went 7 2/3 innings in Game 2 and gave up six runs – all unearned.
A throwing error from Zielke after a comebacker helped open the floodgates in the eighth for the Redhawks, who took full advantage with the four runs.
But for a team who had never before seen Brandon Petersen and Neville lose back-to-back, Zielke’s effort is a reason to be optimistic.
“Our pitching has been there all year for us and the offense just kind of let us down,” Acevedo said. “And this was obviously a big weekend for us coming in against a team that was right there at the top. They just kind of put us out of it a little bit.
“We’re now at .500 in conference. This is the turning point for us. Which way are we going to go? Are we going to get the bats going and offensively start to put things together or are we going to stay with the approach right now that isn’t working?”
