ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – The Quincy offense struggled to get things going in a doubleheader against the 18th-ranked flyers, dropping both games on Saturday (Apr. 12), with scores of 4-3 and 10-3.
GAME ONE
It was a battle between the two starting pitchers to open up Saturday's doubleheader, as both teams were scoreless through the first four innings. Both teams combined for four hits and only five at-bats with a runner in scoring position.
Quincy jumped on the board first in the fifth inning.
Isaiah Fudge had the Hawk's second hit of the game with a single through the left side.
Jake Vitale extended the inning with a hit-by-pitch to give
Matt Mateo a chance to hit with two runners on and two outs. With the count sitting at 2-1, Mateo hit a no-doubt shot over the right field wall to make it 3-0. It was home run number 11 on the season for Mateo and put him at 41 RBIs.
Heading to the home half of the fifth, Hawks starter
Roman Harrison was cruising through four innings but ran into trouble after walking back-to-back batters to bring the tying run to the plate. Three pitches later, on a 1-2 count, the Lewis second baseman matched Mateo's three-run blast with one of his own to tie the game up in the fifth.
Quincy threatened to regain the lead in the sixth inning but failed to cash in with the bases loaded and one out. A leadoff double put the go-ahead run in scoring position for the Flyers in the home half. Two straight flyouts from the bottom of the order were enough to get the runner home from second base and give Lewis a 4-3 lead heading into the final frame.
With the Hawks down to their final three outs, the first two reached after two errors on Lewis, setting up the Hawks with two runners on and nobody out. QU was looking to play small ball and advance the runners, but a perfectly placed bunt down the third base line from
Ben Dahlof loaded the bases, and the heart of the Hawks order came to the plate.
David Broughton was up next and smoked a line drive on a 1-0 count into the 5-6 hole, but a diving play from the Lewis shortstop saved one and possibly two runs for the first out of the inning. The next batters for QU hit two weak groundouts, and the Flyers were able to escape with a 4-3 victory.
GAME TWO
After a scoreless first frame, the Hawks starter
Kyle Manship struggled to find the strike zone, walking four batters in the inning before being pulled. The Flyers mixed in a pair of hits along with an error on the QU defense to put up five runs in the second inning.
Both offenses were quiet in the third and fourth innings, but the Hawks found the run column in the fifth inning, cutting into the deficit with an RBI groundout from
Harry Fandre and a sacrifice fly from
Joe Huffman.
Two batters into the home half, Lewis answered with two runs of their own with an opposite-field two-run homer that scraped over the right-field wall. An eighth run came into score after the second error on the Quincy defense.
Lewis added two more insurance runs in the sixth inning with their second home run of the game to go along with an RBI groundout to make it 10-2 heading to the seventh.
The QU offense struggled to figure out the Lewis pitching staff all day, but
Byron Blaise was able to hit his first career home run in a Hawk uniform with two outs in the seventh inning. That was all the damage to be done in the seventh inning for Quincy, as a groundout ended game two.
The Hawks will look to bounce back tomorrow afternoon and earn a split against Lewis in the final game of the series. The first pitch will be tossed at 12:00 PM CDT in Romeoville.
