No Relief In Sight Yet For Wildkits

Evanston’s bullpen hasn’t offered much relief this season.

And that trend continued this week against Maine South with the start of postseason baseball play just a couple of weeks away for the Wildkits.

After allowing half of South’s run total in an 8-0 loss on Tuesday, the Wildkits surrendered a 5-1 lead in the series finale on Thursday in Park Ridge as the Hawks erupted for 10 runs in one inning in an 11-5 triumph.

Even more disturbing is the fact that, according to pairings for the Class 4A sectional tournament, the two teams could meet again for the regional championship hosted by Maine South the last week of May. On paper, at least, that’s not a matchup that seems likely to help the Kits catch fire in the postseason.

Just once, ETHS head coach Frank Consiglio would like to have confidence in a decision to change pitchers. But no one has emerged in the bullpen to back up a solid starting rotation that consists of sophomore Elliot Paul, senior Owen Vander Velde and junior Johnny Kellams.

Consiglio knows he’s running out of time to find some answers on the mound. The Kits are in danger of suffering just their second losing season in Consiglio’s coaching tenure after falling to 12-16 on the season. They finished dead last in the Central Suburban League South division this spring at 4-11.

Kellams departed Thursday’s game with a 5-1 advantage after four innings. After that, it was all downhill for the Wildkits.

Maybe Consiglio can convince the Illinois High School Association to change the length of all future games from seven innings to five.

“I’m not concerned about beating Maine South if we get to play them again. It gets harder to beat any team every time you play them,” said the ETHS coach. “What’s a concern for me is our pitching in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. We can play with anybody for five innings, but we’re not going to get any (good) results in the postseason if we keep this up.

“We just don’t have the pitching we need in the late innings. Our pitchers need to have more confidence in their stuff to get outs in the (strike) zone, instead of getting ahead of batters and then nibbling, nibbling, nibbling. When you have to depend on a hitter to get himself out, you’re not going to get the results you want in what I call those big boy innings.”

Kellams wasn’t exactly lights out in Thursday’s start, but he managed traffic on the basepaths without being scored on until the Hawks pushed across an unearned run with two outs in the fourth inning.

In the disastrous fifth --- which was interrupted by a lightning delay for 30 minutes, and then called off after five and a half innings because of rain --- the Hawks sent 14 batters to the plate against the ETHS mound trio of Sam Kalil, Zach Bachochin and Will Molitor. None of them could limit the damage as the carnage featured seven hits for the home team, including back-to-back home runs by Evan Adamczewski and Luka Stojakovic with a 30-mile-per-hour wind aiding those blasts.

After scoring only three total runs in the first 16 innings of the division series, the Wildkits began the finale with a bang when sophomore shortstop Tate Schroeder belted a home run on a 3-2 pitch leading off the game against South right-hander Cole Mutchler.

Senior Avan Teuer, who has struggled all season with runners in scoring position, contributed RBI singles in both the fourth and fifth to stake the visitors to a 5-1 advantage.

Evanston earned the No. 7 seed for the Loyola Academy Sectional, where the top four seeds are New Trier, Lane Tech, Maine South and Glenbrook North. The Wildkits are scheduled to open regional play on May 29th at 5 p.m. against No. 11 seed Chicago Von Steuben, with the winner advancing to play either Maine South or Elk Grove Village on May 31st.