Evanston head baseball coach Frank Consiglio anticipated plenty of growing pains this spring for a young and untested (at least on the varsity level) pitching staff.
And that trend continued on Thursday in the final game of a best-of-three Central Suburban League South division series against New Trier.
Wildkit pitchers didn’t have what it takes to dig their team out of a tailspin that reached five losses in the past seven games as New Trier clubbed the Kits 14-3 in a slaughter rule contest at ETHS.
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New Trier, which won two in a row after dropping the series opener 12-10, exploded for 11 runs in the top of the third inning and banged out 12 hits overall against ETHS hurlers Johnny Kellams, Sam Kalil and Cole Felten.
The No. 9 hitter in the New Trier batting order, Luke Mastros, hit a two-run homer and C.J. Donnelly added a three-run blast in that decisive third inning as the Trevians sent 16 batters to the plate. Donnelly finished with a total of six runs-batted-in while going 3-for-4 with a single, double and homer.
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New Trier improved to 14-5-1 on the year, 3-3 in league play.
Evanston, now 9-10 overall and 1-5 CSL South, reached the midpoint of the season with an arsenal of pitchers that still doesn’t seem to trust their own stuff --- and can’t get ahead of hitters because of that lack of confidence.
“We made it easy on New Trier today. If you’re not throwing strike one, you make it easier on the other team,” Consiglio pointed out. “When you DO get strike one you take 100 points off the other team’s batting average, but we didn’t do that today.
“We haven’t had many stinkers (lopsided losses) this year and we don’t feel like we’re over-matched going into any of our games. But we still don’t understand how to put games away. No matter what pitches you throw, you still have to spot your fastball well, and we aren’t doing a good job of that. It’s a matter of just not having confidence in your stuff. And until we do that, we’re going to be up and down as a team.”
Avan Teuer (solo shot in the first inning) and Clay Lemmon (two-run blast in the fourth) accounted for all of the scoring for Evanston. Their only other hit against New Trier junior right-hander Greg Campitelli was a single by Ethan Carpenter.
The Wildkits are back in action Monday at home to start another CSL South series, this one against Glenbrook North.
