Trevs Take Series After Dropping Opener

This isn’t your daddy’s --- or even your older brother’s --- New Trier baseball team anymore.

But the Trevians still have the upper hand on Evanston.

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With a knack for scoring two-out runs, New Trier battled back from a loss in Game 1 to take the Central Suburban League South division series over the last two games and finished it off with a 7-1 triumph at Duke Childs Field Thursday.

The Trevians also topped the Kits 8-4 in Wednesday’s makeup game, which was originally scheduled for last Monday but was postponed due to wet weather. New Trier scored 13 of those 15 runs in the combined wins after ETHS pitchers had two outs already recorded, a testimony to both their ability to keep innings alive and hit in the clutch --- and the pitchers’ inability to close out innings.

New Trier, which has slipped into mediocrity this spring for the first time in decades, moved to just 11-9 overall and 3-6 in conference play. Evanston, which will need a strong surge in May to even finish with a winning record, is now 8-15 and 2-7, respectively.

Evanston head coach Frank Consiglio, whose success over the years can be traced partly to his ability to find the right matchups for his pitchers coming out of the bullpen, hasn’t been able to play to that strength this season.

Evanston’s bullpen roles still haven’t been defined and that scenario is forcing the veteran coach to push his starters to go deeper into games and out of their comfort zones.

That’s what happened to Sam Kalil Thursday in chilly 40 degree weather in Winnetka. The junior right-hander battled out of jams in the first and third innings, but even as he approached a 90 pitch count in the fifth inning, Consiglio had to leave him in the game.

New Trier pounced on him for five runs to break open a 1-1 contest as he yielded three straight run-scoring hits after the hosts filled the bases with two outs.

The Trevians, on the other hand, got a quality two innings from starter Trevor Bacik and Nick Bailey shut down the Wildkits the rest of the way, retiring the last nine batters he faced.

New Trier’s two-out success stood out to Consiglio on Thursday.

“I don’t know that it was so much clutch hitting as it was that they have a good approach and put the ball in play better than we did,” the coach pointed out. “We had them charted (correctly) to hit to the opposite field and they did get some hits through there.

“It’s more of a challenge now that we have to cover (innings) for a 3-game series instead of two. I thought Sam was excellent through four innings today, but we had to extend him through 90 pitches because we don’t have a guy coming out of the bullpen with velocity, a guy who can put away hitters. Most of our pitchers pitch to contact, and when that happens late in games against a team like New Trier, the ball can find holes.

“Right now, we’re at a disadvantage late in games.”

Evanston’s offense didn’t give Kalil much support Thursday. The Wildkits did bunch three of their five total hits together in the top of the third inning, when Elliot Paul whacked a two-out single down the right, Ryan Rappoport singled on an 0-2 pitch, and Aaron Shalin pounded an RBI double to left.

Bailey prevented a big inning, however, when he retired hot-hitting Tate Schroeder on a fly ball to right. Evanston never got a runner past first base the rest of the way.

The Trevians pulled even against Kalil in their half of the third on an RBI single by designated hitter Nate Blazo --- with two outs, of course. They splurged for five more runs against the junior in the fifth, and the hosts tacked on another run in the sixth versus ETHS relievers Tyler Long and Chuck Lubinsky.

On Wednesday, the Kits fell despite a 3-for-3 performance by Schroeder at the plate that included two doubles and a triple. New Trier totaled 10 hits against losing pitcher Matt Gilroy and his bullpen successors, Calvin Hayes and Bryce Lortie.