Homewood-Flossmoor baseball already tallied a pair of extra-inning victories this young season. The Vikings have shown grit. It’s exactly what coach Marcus Rodgers has tried to instill in his team over the last two seasons.
Unfortunately, that grit didn’t come through in 9-7 SouthWest Suburban Conference loss to Lockport April 6. H-F led the game 7-0 after three innings but the Porters stormed back to steal a road win.
“What are we going to do when we get punched in the face?” Vikings coach Marcus Rodgers said. “Some other days we were able to withstand it but today we got punched in the face (and didn’t). That’s nine unanswered runs. I’ve never seen anything like that before. That shows our fight today.”
The Vikings scored quickly on a cold, blustery day. Ashton Jones walked, stole second base, tagged on Evan Bradford’s fly ball and then scored on Jalen Webb’s infield single.
H-F added four in the second, including a pair on Mikey Watson’s triple. Two more Vikings crossed the plate in the third.
“We fought our hardest, some days you just don’t have it. It’s just unfortunate today, our first conference game,” Bradford said. “It’s just a really tough day.”
Bradford was 2-3 with a double, an RBI and was hit by a pitch. He said Ryan O’Neal, who relieved Lockport starter Austin Winge in the fourth, mixed his pitches well and kept H-F off balance.
“He was getting a lot of rollovers. I didn’t think we struck out a lot, only seven strike outs,” Bradford said. “We had a lot of weak contact to the left side, something we’ve stayed away from in the first innings. We were hitting balls a lot harder to the right side.”
Northwestern commit Henry Humes was on the hill for the Vikings (6-2, 0-1). The senior faced only 10 hitters and allowed no runners in the first three innings. The Porters (6-4, 1-0) scored eight combined in the fourth and fifth frames, the biggest blows coming on home runs by Zack Skrzypiec and David Kundrat.
A strong wind blowing toward right field played a role. Jhames Holley was the only Vikings hitter who stepped into the left-handed box.
The teams were set to meet again two days later but Rodgers said that didn’t change the way he managed the game.
“We had our guy on the mound,” he said. “He would say he didn’t pitch as good as he can pitch, as good as he has in the past. I guess I could’ve went and got him a little earlier but he’s our guy. He deserves to fight.”
Cormac Saunders relieved Humes and allowed an unearned run while finishing the fifth. Skrzypiec singled in another in the seventh inning. Saunders struck out four and allowed three hits over three innings.
H-F had scoring chances later in the game. The Vikings left runners on base in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
Christian Hudson was thrown out at the plate while pinch running for Brock Hamilton in the fifth. That score would’ve tied the game.
“It’s definitely a relief (that we’ll play Lockport again in two days),” Bradford said. “We’re going to come out on fire and try to beat them really bad at their field.”
