Noah Herdman knows to give credit when it’s due.
With the way Naperville Central senior left-hander Ryan Eiermann was working the Neuqua Valley lineup on Saturday, Herdman offered up plenty of praise.
But he also knows baseball is all about opportunities.
And in the seventh inning on Saturday, opportunity came knocking for the Wildcats’ junior third baseman.
Herdman’s two-run, walk-off homer helped spoil Eiermann’s first start of the season as Neuqua Valley posted a 5-3 DuPage Valley Conference victory over Naperville Central.
“Well, Ryan Eiermann’s a great pitcher. I give him credit,” Herdman said. “He got me three times and when (Tyler Brinker) came in, he just threw me a nice fastball inside. I just put it in the air. Knew that the wind was blowing left-side and I just threw my hands outside.”
Herdman’s walk-off ended a three-run, two-out rally the Wildcats (8-0-1, 3-0) engineered after Eiermann went six innings and struck out 12.
Of the nine hits Neuqua Valley recorded off Eiermann and Brinker, James Gargano, Ryan Wheeler and Jack Rigoni were responsible for seven of them.
The Butler-bound Gargano recorded two doubles as part of his three-hit afternoon while Rigoni had two RBIs off Eiermann.
“Ryan was lights out, to be honest,” Gargano said. “He did get a couple off him, but he was pretty dialed in. Brinker’s a great pitcher too, though. We just knew we had to barrel the ball up, get something going possible. Once we had those two outs before me, I knew I just had to somehow get on base.”
As part of a two-run third, the Redhawks (6-2, 2-1) recorded four hits off Justin Hicks – with Tommy Carlsen and Eiermann each coming through with RBI singles.
Jack Hughes’ sacrifice fly in the fifth answered Rigoni’s second RBI of the game to put Naperville Central up 3-2.
Hicks struck out seven in his six innings for the Wildcats and Mason LeBreck tossed a scoreless seventh to keep them down just one run.
“I walked over and I told (Redhawks’ coach) Mike (Stock), ‘I can’t believe that high school baseball gets a whole lot better than this,’” Neuqua Valley coach Robin Renner said. “It’s one of the better games I’ve ever been a part of. Two really good pitchers, two really good teams; great kids, great players battling. … It was really good baseball, really good baseball.
“You might as well had walked out here at 2 p.m. and flipped a coin at home plate to see who won. Obviously the game could have gone the other way.”
Over six innings, the TCU-bound Eiermann struck out at least 10 for the sixth time in his career.
In his last three starts against Neuqua Valley, Eiermann is 2-0 with 32 strikeouts in 17 2/3 innings.
“He went through on fastballs only the first time, maybe time-and-a-half through the order and then he started getting some breaking balls over,” Stock said. “And he’s been working, he’s been pitching. So his first time out, we weren’t worried about the pitch count for him personally.”
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