St. Rita – per its custom – was perched highly atop various preseason polls coming into the season.
On a beautiful Saturday in Lisle, Benet got an up close and personal look as to why.
Behind a four-run first inning and getting five innings of shutout ball from lefty Steven Washilewski, St. Rita cruised to a 10-0, five-inning victory over Benet.
Four straight hits off Redwings’ starter Alex Analitis highlighted the four-run uprising for the Mustangs (4-0) in the opening inning – none bigger than Dominic Sarro’s two-run homer.
Sarro’s blast to left followed up back-to-back RBI singles from Mateo Zunica and Cal Greenfield as St. Rita put the pressure on Analitis and the Redwings early with a pair of bunts to start the game.
“Two guys ahead of me went after first-pitch fastballs,” said Sarro, who had three RBI. “They attacked it. I saw the same thing. I was waiting for a fastball, kind of elevated. Wind’s blowing out a little bit. Got something in the air and it went.”
Analitis lasted just two-plus innings for Benet (1-2) as a two-run home run to left-center from Christian Pearl with a runner on and nobody out in the third ended his afternoon.
Left-hander Joey Christensen and Bobby Ernsting followed Analitis to the mound with not much success.
Christensen was able to keep the Redwings’ deficit at 6-0 by coming in for Analitis by throwing two scoreless innings. However, the Mustangs got to Ernsting.
After Sarro drew a bases-loaded walk from Ernsting, Ray Hansen cleared the bases with a two-out triple to put St. Rita up 10-0 in the fifth.
“They’re a really, really good team,” Benet coach Scott Lawler said of the Mustangs. “Since I’ve been here, this is my fifth year we’ve played St. Rita in the beginning of the year, and this might be the best lineup I think they’ve had since I’ve coached against them. When you play a team like that, you can’t give them outs and you can leave the ball up in the zone.”
The three-run hit to left in the fifth was Hansen’s second extra-base hit of the game as he had a bloop double in the first to follow up Sarro’s homer.
“I’m an aggressive hitter,” Hansen said. “I just wanted to have an aggressive at-bat there. Obviously, with the bases loaded, I wanted to be able to do something with it. Got myself into a hole right there – 0-2. Tried fighting back a little bit, saw a fastball up.”
Lost in the offensive output for the Mustangs was the performance of Washilewski.
Washilewski was able to stymie Benet’s offense by just doing what his teammates know he can do – throw strikes.
“It works both ways. We know he’s going to go out there, he’s going pitch a gem,” Sarro said of Washilewski. “So if we get one or two runs, we feel real confident with him on the mound. He threw three pitches for strikes, inside, outside corner, kept them off-balance all day. And – as hitters – it’s easy for us to go out there and get one or two runs and back him up.”
The Redwings’ run to the semifinals of the IHSBCA Phil Lawler Summer Classic last summer gave them tons of reason for optimism heading into the spring.
Lawler wants his team to realize that their work in the summer doesn’t immediately guarantee success in the spring and a sense of urgency is needed.
“We had a great summer and just because you had a good summer doesn’t mean you’re just going to walk in and be able to beat people,” he said. “And (St. Rita) played a very fundamentally sound game, so it was a good thing to point out to our guys of like ‘Hey, guys, we need to get to that point right there.’ So in that point, it was good.”
