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Brandon Hanik Two-Hits Benet As Marist Advances to Phil Lawler Summer Classic Title Game Courtesy of 10-0 Shutout

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Mark Moran delivers a pitch for Benet during Marist's 10-0, five inning shutout of the Redwings in the Phil Lawler Summer Classic on July 22, 2015.
Mark Moran delivers a pitch for Benet during Marist’s 10-0, five inning shutout of the Redwings in the Phil Lawler Summer Classic on July 22, 2015.

Courtesy of its own pitching, Danny Sobolewski and Benet had the pleasure of seeing up close what good pitching looks like.

Unfortunately for Sobolewski and the Redwings, Marist’s Brandon Hanik proved to be quite worthy in that regard on Wednesday night.

Hanik tossed a two-hitter in the Redwings’ direction as Marist advanced to the Phil Lawler Summer Classic title game with a 10-0, five-inning victory over Benet at Benedictine University.

“He did a great job,” Sobolewski said of Hanik. “He was keeping the ball away a lot, which we haven’t seen too much this summer and we saw a lot last year. We struggled with it a little bit. But we know we can improve in that in the offseason. I think we’ll be ready when we see a pitcher like that next season.”

Sobolewski’s one-out double in the fourth was the second blemish on Hanik’s record.

A C.J. Birck double with two outs in the third for Benet (18-8) snapped a streak of eight consecutive batters retired to begin the game for Hanik.

Hanik struck out three for the RedHawks, who meets Lincoln-Way North on Thursday night for the IHSBCA summer state baseball tournament title.

“I knew (assistant) Coach (Dan Higgin) would call a great game, so I just hit my spots,” he said. “(Higgin) stressed, ‘What are you going to throw?’ Just hit my spots like I always do.”

A four-run second and a five-run fifth for Marist helped brake the game open.

Five errors, including three during the five-run fourth, didn’t help the Redwings’ cause.

“The wheels fell off,” Benet coach Scott Lawler said. “We’ve played such a clean game for the last two weeks. I don’t want to say it was nerves, but we looked tired. And we played like it and Marist played really well. They put the ball in play and put pressure on us.”

Moran, who lasted 2 2/3 innings, was relieved by seniors Pat Barron and George Gapinski as the RedHawks’ offense refused to let up.

A two-run single from John Carmody, a sac fly from Brian Wood and a RBI double from Bobby Gorman highlighted the five-run fourth for Marist.

Benet had received 29 1/3 innings of two-run baseball from its starters combined in its last five games coming into Wednesday night.

The five errors, coupled with Moran’s short outing, marked such a sharp contrast from what the Redwings had been doing for the entire tournament.

Lawler summed up the night his charges experienced pretty succinctly.

“We ran out of gas,” he said. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of the guys and I told them not to hang their heads. But they ran out of gas.”

[shareprints gallery_id=”45002″ gallery_type=”squares” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”small” image_padding=”2″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”false” lightbox_type=”slide” comments=”false” sharing=”true”]PURCHASE PHOTOS FROM THIS GALLERY

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Blake Baumgartner
Blake Baumgartner
Raised in Naperville, Blake Baumgartner is a 2001 Naperville Central alumnus and a 2005 graduate of Michigan State's School of Journalism. Since March 2010, he has covered football, boys' basketball and baseball for both The Naperville Sun and Positively Naperville. Follow him on Twitter @BFBaumgartner.
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