Nick Santoro had no time to think.
With Wheaton North in process of attempting a potential game-tying double steal with two outs to spare in the seventh, Santoro just reared back to fire to catcher Nick Price.
Santoro’s fling to cut down Ryan Kocher helped preserve yet another quality outing from Jason Neville as Waubonsie Valley come back to beat Wheaton North, 3-2, on Tuesday.
“It was actually a cut play and I was supposed to guard the bag and if the guy went at third, then I was supposed to cut it off,” the Wisconsin Whitewater-bound Santoro said. “Then the throw was a little off and the guy wasn’t going at first, so Luke (Gregorio) let it go.
“It was a tough play. I got it off the backhand and I just saw (Kocher) going pretty fast down the line, so I just threw it as fast as I could. Nick Price had a fantastic tag and luckily we got him out.”
As Neville improved to 9-0 and a step away from becoming the fourth pitcher to win at least 10 games for the Warriors, they clinched at least a piece of the DVC title.
Neville struck out nine as he threw his fourth complete game of the year in rebounding from his worst start of the year.
Surrendering four earned runs in a 10-4 victory at Naperville North last week, Neville allowed just one earned run or less for the ninth time in 2016.
“That was still kind of tough. I made a couple mistakes in that game, left the ball up,” he said. “So I was just trying to get the ball down (Tuesday), throw strikes. I did that for the most part. Kind of went off track in the sixth and seventh, but it’s okay. We still got the ‘W.’ I feel I pitched pretty well, in comparison to last week.”
While Neville was rolling along for the Warriors (22-9, 16-7), so was Casey Becker for the Falcons.
In his first outing since throwing a complete game against Ryan Eiermann and Naperville Central last week, Becker nearly matched Neville pitch for pitch.
Becker struck out seven and retired the leadoff man in five of his six innings on the mound.
Staked to a 1-0 lead after a RBI single from Erik Mueller in the top of the sixth, Becker permitted singles to Neville and Casey Kemerling to start the bottom of the inning.
Finally seeing some offensive traction come its way after Becker continually stranded two-out singles throughout the game, Joey Spano and Gregorio delivered the big blows.
Two batters after Spano tied the game at 1-1 with a soft single to right, Gregorio found the left-center gap for a two-run double as Waubonsie Valley took its first lead of the game.
“In my first two at-bats, I didn’t really get a ton of great pitches to hit. He was keeping me kind of low,” Gregorio said of Becker. “He was throwing me changeups and fastballs. I didn’t see a curveball until that last at-bat. And so, he threw me a first-pitch curveball and I saw it and I think it was inside corner.
“Then he came back, second-pitch curveball, and it was right there. He kind of left it hanging over the plate, so I just kept my weight back and tried to just poke it out there.”
Price and Spano each had 3-for-3 efforts at the plate off Becker for the Warriors, who have a DVC title to call their own after back-to-back Upstate Eight crowns in 2014 and 2015.
Over the last 24 days, Waubonsie Valley made up five games in the standings to become the first program to claim at least a piece of a DVC title for the school.
A victory Wednesday over the Falcons gives it that conference crown all to its lonesome.
“If you would’ve asked me at that time, I would’ve said there’s no chance we’re sitting here,” Waubonsie Valley coach Bryan Acevedo said of his team’s standing after being swept by Naperville Central in a doubleheader on April 23. “But the way these guys have just kind of stuck together and stuck with it. And to (go) 10-1 or something like that in conference since then, without Brandon to throw and without his bat in the middle of the lineup, I mean, these guys have just stepped up and found a way. I just couldn’t be more proud of them.”
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