Gutowski, Kits Get Back On Winning Track

Ben Gutowski helped get Evanston’s baseball team back on track Monday at Northwestern University.

Gutowski went 3-for-4 with 2 stolen bases and 2 runs scored as the Wildkits ended a brief 2-game losing skid with a 10-5 victory over Hersey at Miller Park.

Evanston --- which still hasn’t been able to play an actual home game yet this spring --- improved to 4-2 on the season, banging out 12 hits and stealing 6 bases in another impressive all-around offensive performance.

A young team that is still searching for an identity, while still learning how to win at the varsity level, got back to its basic fundamentals and overcame an early deficit by scoring 4 runs in the 4th inning, 1 in the 5th and 3 more in the 6th.

“We attacked the baseball in the (strike) zone and we moved around on the bases --- that’s Evanston baseball,” said ETHS head coach Frank Consiglio. “And when we have Hank Liss and Owen Brooks on the mound, we control the running game, and that’s how you compete against other teams.

“We gave ourselves more chances to score because what we’re really good at is shutting down the other team’s running game. To me, that’s a huge momentum piece in a baseball game and that always sparks us on our side when we do that.”

Gutowski, who also had a 3-hit game in the season-opening win over Oak Park-River Forest, was one of 8 Evanston starters to hit safely and one of 5 different players who drove in runs for the winners. The senior outfielder played a key role in ETHS rallies in the first, fourth and sixth innings.

In the first, Gutowski doubled and came around to score on a balk and Brandon Brokowski’s two-bagger. He delivered an RBI single in the 4th --- and also swiped second base --- and capped a strong offensive showing with an infield hit and another stolen base in the 6th.

“Ben Gutowski is just killing the ball for us,” Consiglio praised. “You can’t get him out! He’s recognizing when off-speed pitches are away from him and he’s really competing well in the zone this year. Last year, he swung at a lot of balls that were out of the zone, but this year he’s attacking balls that he can handle. That’s made a big difference for him.

“As a coach, when you have a team that drops 2 games in a row, that helps you focus back on the basics. I was looking for the bounce-back after the Whitney Young game (in which the Kits saw a comeback attempt short-circuited when the game was called because of snow flurries), but we didn’t get it against Lane Tech. We didn’t make the adjustments an older team would have made.

“Then today we get down 3-0 against a good team right away and I’m not feeling too good about things. I really learned a lot about this team today, that’s what’s so exciting.”

The aggressive Huskies (3-3) battered Liss for 3 runs and 4 hits --- including a double and a triple --- in the top of the first, but he found a groove after that. He was replaced with one out in the 5th by Brooks, who faced just one batter over the minimum to close out the victory.

“Hank did a really good job of settling in after that first inning, and Owen did an excellent job of getting them out and giving us more chances to hit,” praised Consiglio.”

Heath Ballard’s 1-out single jump-started the Evanston offense for what turned out to be the winning rally in the 4th. Sam Sheikh followed with an opposite field double, Ballard scored on a passed ball, and Addison Blough’s infield out produced another run.

Charlie Kalil kept the inning alive by drawing a walk, Liss doubled him home, and pinch-runner Liam Koehler tallied on Gutowski’s single as Evanston seized a 6-4 advantage.

Evanston tacked on an unearned run in the 5th, and a two-run triple by Brokowski was the big blow of that 6th inning uprising.