Jacob Hennessy didn’t want to be the one to let up.
With the way both Brandon Petersen and Jason Neville have set the tone on the mound for Waubonsie Valley, expectations are high.
Hennessy came one out shy of throwing a complete game as Waubonsie Valley won its third straight game after picking up a 7-3 victory over Naperville North.
In his 6 2/3 innings before giving way to Ryan Jones, Hennessy scattered seven hits and fanned two.
“We’re just doing what we can. The team is coming out playing really good,” said Petersen, who had two hits and two RBIs. “We’re just playing some solid baseball. Our pitchers are all stepping up. (Myself) and Jason, Hennessy and our defense behind us is just making great plays. We’re just playing great baseball.”
The Warriors (4-1) putting up a four-spot in the first inning certainly made things easier for him.
Five hits off Huskies’ starter Matt Pillatch helped piece together the four-run inning.
Garret Howicz, Nick Price, Jones and Petersen had two hits apiece for Waubonsie Valley.
Three Warriors, Jones, Petersen and Paul Vickers, knocked in two runs each.
“Coach Acevedo was telling us before the game that we needed to come in and sit back on (Pillatch’s) curveball and that we needed to have some quality at-bats,” Petersen said. “We put together some really nice quality at-bats and got some real nice hits and scored some runs.”
The season-high seven runs was a welcome sign for the Warriors.
Naperville North (2-4) got two hits from both Steve Dudas and Christian Robert.
Pillatch went 6 1/3 innings and gave up nine hits and six earned runs for the Huskies.
While he settled in to give his offense a chance to come back, the first inning was too much.
“The first inning was a tough inning for (Pillatch). Give (Waubonsie Valley) credit. You don’t often see any team at any level get five consecutive hits and they got five consecutive hits,” Naperville North coach Carl Hunckler said. “But Matt came back and settled down and I thought he did pitch a nice game. Just got to be consistent and eliminate the big inning.”
[shareprints gallery_id=”2264″ gallery_type=”squares” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”small” image_padding=”1″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”false” lightbox_type=”slide” captions=”true” comments=”false” sharing=”true”]
