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YORKVILLE — There hasn’t been much that has upset Simon Skroch on the mound this season.
Yorkville’s left-handed sophomore has once again belied his youth in another big baseball game for the Foxes.
Skroch improved his bump record to a perfect 6-0 after pitching 4 1/3 innings, batting eight and winning two to lead his team to a 14-0 five-inning win over Minooka in the Southwest Prairie matchup to help conference of western leaders Tuesday afternoon at Memorial Park.
“I just go out there and try to throw hard and I got a couple of them today,” Skroch said. “Even so, I thought I was struggling at times, but I kept my head clear and my team-mates did the rest to support me.”
Boy did they ever.
For the second straight day, the Foxes (24-3, 9-2 SPC West) produced great time at the plate. After Monday’s 19-12 triumph at Minooka, Yorkville, the home side, scored 18 goals in Game 2 of the three-game set to assist Skroch. Seven players in the Yorkville starting lineup have scored two or more goals.
That made it easy for Skroch as he watched his buddies hit two runs in the first inning and six runs each in the second and third to give the young left-hander everything he could ask for and then some.
“It’s nice to see the bats coming in the last few games and today we put the ball in play hard and took advantage of that,” said Yorkville coach Tom Cerven. “Simon did a great job, and while he was a little up with his fastball, he still looked very good against a rock-solid baseball team when a pitcher has that stuff like him.”
Minooka (19-8, 7-3) was unable to cope against Skroch and has now lost four of his last five games.
“It’s amazing how quickly a season can change,” said Minooka coach Jeff Petrovic. “We had few losses last week and found ways to win. Unfortunately, now we find hard ways to lose. I’ve been training here for 25 years and I’ve experienced something like this before. But I hope we can get hot again because as quickly as a season can go bad, it can bounce back and go just as well. Thanks to Yorkville though for really bringing it to us yesterday and today.”
After Skroch paired into the top of the first, he held the Indians up with two strikeouts.
Then Yorkville’s offensive attack began in the bottom of the inning against Minooka, who started pitcher Frank Hummel and lost.
Senior Matthew Bivens (two doubles) executed and was met by an offer from Hummel. One out later, senior Connor Corrigan (3 for 3, three RBIs) singled right and pushed Bivens into third place. Senior Owen Ross (3 for 3, five RBIs) followed up with a run-scoring infield hit that Bivens scored before Corrigan streaked home with a double steal to give the Foxes a 2-0 lead after one inning .
They scored six more in the home half of Hummel’s second half, sending 11 batters to the plate with run-scoring plate performances from Junior Gio Zeman (2 for 3, two RBIs) Bivens and Corrigan. Ross finished the promotion with a monster three-run homer to dead center field that gave Yorkville an 8-0 lead after two innings. It was Ross’ fourth round tripper of the season.
“I wanted to keep the rally going by scoring two goals,” said Ross. “I was in a bit of a crisis before today, so it was nice to get out of there.”
With Skroch sailing along, the Foxes added six more runs late in the third when Zeman soloed the Minooka release, leading Matt Medlin into left center with a solo homer that put the ledger up 9-0.
“Before the game, I questioned my batting ability because I haven’t played much in the past few weeks,” said Zeman. “I actually thought I jumped out but it made it over the fence so I was pretty happy.”
Corrigan eventually followed up with a two-run single, Ross an RBI base hit, sophomore Nate Harris (2 for 3) a double run, and senior pinch hitter Brody Ferko a victim fly RBI when the Foxes came after three with 14-0 lead.
All that was left was for Skroch to beat the team at the top of fourth before junior relief Kyle Stevens came on with one from fifth to close the door on a great day for Yorkville.
