Head coach Frank Consiglio summed up Evanston’s loss to New Trier Tuesday in a Central Suburban League South division baseball showdown in one sentence.
“It was ugly across the board,” said the Wildkit mentor.
The Wildkits committed a season-high five errors and New Trier eased to an 11-2 rain-plagued victory at ETHS.
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The two teams meet again Thursday at Duke Childs Field in Winnetka and Evanston, now 10-4-1 overall and 2-2 in conference play, is already in danger of falling back in the division championship race.
Three New Trier pitchers --- Max Kaplan, Pedro Hernandez and Jack Wilson --- limited the host team to just two hits and combined for 12 strikeouts. On offense, the Trevians tallied five unearned runs and improved to 11-3 and 4-0, respectively, while chalking up their eighth win in a row.
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Consiglio saw this meltdown coming after ragged outings in Evanston’s last two games. Now the Kits need to regroup.
“We can fix what we’ve seen on the field,” said the veteran coach. “But until these kids start working together, until they have each other’s backs, you won’t see a change on the field. That’s where the frustration is.
“We didn’t do anything well today. How many times can you see something negative happen and just hope your leadership can get you back into the moment? If we don’t have a great dugout --- and that’s where the leadership comes in --- now we’re at the point where we’re going to make some changes.
“That was one of the worst defensive performances I’ve seen in quite awhile, and in key spots in the game, too. It really becomes a battle when you get down early up against a pitcher like that. Then it really becomes a challenge.”
Winning pitcher Kaplan, who shut out the Wildkits last May in the sectional championship game, was touched for just one hit when his shortstop and second baseman collided chasing a popup hit by Owen Vander Velde with one out in the 3rd inning. Kaplan struck out eight in his 4-inning stint and the only other hit for ETHS was a pinch-hit single by Matthew Luczak leading off the 7th.
Losing pitcher Eron Vega reached on an error with one out in the 4th and courtesy runner Alex Van Durmen eventally scored on a wild pitch. The Kits scored again in the 5th without benefit of a hit, with Noah Cryns picking up the RBI via an infield out.
New Trier touched Vega for a run right away in the 1st on Evan Olesker’s double down the right field line. Both Vega and batterymate Vinny Miller were charged with separate errors on wild pickoff attempts that chased home two more New Trier runs in the 2nd.
The visitors tacked on two runs in the 5th, one more in the 6th, and five more in the 7th to pull away.
