Hazelwood West Rallies from Early Deficits for Wild Win Against McCluer

With a lineup and pitching staff that offers as much playing time to his four seniors as it does his three sophomores and one freshman, varsity baseball coach Matt McClellan’s goal for the season is to simply try to get better each game.

He preaches that mantra to his players every day.

But in the minutes following the March 29 Suburban North Conference tussle with visiting McCluer, McClellan wasn’t sure his Wildcats reached that goal.

“I think we took a step backwards today,” McClellan said. “We’re gonna have to try to get back on it, and try and do better next time.”

The coach’s words make it sound like West lost Tuesday, when in fact, the Wildcats earned their biggest win of the season thus far, a 15-5 mercy-rule shortened victory, against the visiting McCluer Comets.

“We got out with a win, and that’s good,” McClellan said. “But there’s a lot of things that we learned today that we’re going to have to adjust and work on in practice.”

One thing the Wildcats will certainly have to work on is defending better against their opponents on the basepaths.

McCluer, which might be the fastest team in the Suburban North, stole 11 bases against West, and scored three of its five runs on some type of aggressive baserunning play.

Junior third baseman Eric Woodley stole five bases in the game, while teammate Lance Jeffries had three steals, all in the first inning, including a successful steal of home that gave McCluer its first run.

Jeffries also scored in the first, on a basehit by shortstop Jermaine Richmond, to put the Comets up 2-0 before many fans had even settled in their seat to watch the game.

“I don’t know if it was because it was our first home game,” McClellan said, “or if they’re trying to get a feel for the atmosphere up here.

"Or if it’s the temperature, but our mentality wasn’t really there at the beginning," he said. "It took us a couple innings to get our heads in the game.”

Once they did though, the Wildcats quickly tied the score.

In the bottom of the first, junior catcher Oday Al-Yatim drove in senior leftfielder Darrius Howard with a smash hit to left field. And in the second, senior third baseman Paul Chavez doubled home rightfielder Shane Olmstead to make the score 2-2.

At that point, West seemed to have regained the momentum. But the speedy Comets quickly snatched it back with a three-run third inning.

Woodley got McCluer going again with a one-out basehit to left. He then promptly stole second and third, and scored on another RBI Richmond hit. Richmond then preceeded to also steal second and third base.

All the movement on the basepaths seemed to bother West starter Jared Fosdick, who walked McCluer’s Jeray Smith, then allowed him to steal a base, which put runners on second and third with only one out.

Fosdick tried to settle himself, but before he could, he threw two wild pitches that flew by Al-Yatim, and allowed Richmond and Smith to score, giving McCluer its biggest lead of the day at 5-2.

“That’s a credit to (McCluer),” McClellan said. “They’ve got some guys that can run, and they’re a team that when they get guys on base, they’re gonna put pressure on you.

"And we’ve got to be able to handle it."

McClellan said there are some things on which he plans to work out with his pitching lineup.

"We’ve gotta do a better job of keeping runners close, and mixing up our looks, and keeping guys honest on base," he said. "That falls on the pitchers and the catchers.”

The Wildcat hitters made sure to get those runs back quickly, scoring three times in the bottom half of the third, thanks to RBI hits by shortstop Matt Leinberger and Al-Yatim, along with a sacrifice fly Olmstead hit.

Freshman Jordan Yakel took over the pitching duties for West in the fourth, and completely overpowered McCluer for three quick outs, which allowed the Wildcat lineup to go right back to work.

Junior Austin Kempfer, who was making his first start of the season, scored and proved to be the game-winning run. He and teammate Trevor Jones pulled off a successful double-steal of second and home, respectively.

McCluer’s Richmond threw a wild pitch on which Jones took third base. He scored on the second RBI double of he day. A ball Leinberger hit. Al-Yatim capped the inning with an RBI groundball that scored Leinberger to give West an 8-5 lead.

“(Matt’s) been our offensive leader so far,” McClellan said. “He’s swinging the bat really well.

"Hopefully, he keeps it up, he said. "He’s been big for us.”

After Yakel, who earned his first varsity win as a pitcher on the day, mowed down McCluer again in the top of the fifth, West put the game away by scoring seven runs in the bottom half without making an out.

Yakel and Kempfer had run-scoring hits, and several Wildcat players earned bases-loaded walks, before Leinberger scored the final run on a botched pickoff throw at third.

The victory was West’s first 10-run win of 2011, and lifted the team to 2-2 on the season.

McCluer fell to 1-2, and will look to even its mark when it takes on University City March 30 at Jack Buck Field in Heman Park.

Hazelwood West’s next game is March 31 at 4 p.m. The team will travel to McCluer North for another Suburban North contest.

The Wildcats next home game is Tuesday, April 5, when they’ll take on archrival Hazelwood Central, also at 4 p.m.