Palatine
rallies for tie
Posted Friday, April 08, 2005
Palatine came back from a 7-3 deficit to finish in a 9-9 tie at Stevenson in a nonconference baseball game called because of darkness after 6 innings Thursday in Lincolnshire.
This was the second game in a row Stevenson (6-1-2) finished in a tie, as the Patriots came back from a 11-4 deficit to tie Rolling Meadows 11-11 Wednesday.
Palatine was down 8-2 until rallying with 3 runs in the fifth inning and four more in the sixth.
In the top of the fifth, Butch Biela and Dane Henning each hit RBI singles and Brendan Dailey had a sacrifice fly as the Pirates took advantage of 3 Stevenson walks to come within 8-5.
In the bottom of the fifth, Stevenson added a run without a hit. The Patriots took advantage of 2 walks and a hit batter.
With a 9-5 lead it appeared Stevenson had the game in hand.
However, it wasn’t meant to be for the Patriots. Mike Brown, walked, Art Treutler singled and Biela walked to load the bases.
Henning drove in a run with a single, Tom Devero picked up an RBI on a fielder’s choice, and Dailey’s 2-run double tied the game at 9-9 before the game was halted.
Palatine starting pitcher Tom Devero gave up 6 runs on 5 hits in the first 3 innings. However, only 3 of the runs were earned as Palatine had 5 errors, including four in the third.
“It was great to see our offense bounce back from such a big deficit, “ Devero said. “I didn’t have great command of my pitches and we made a lot of errors in the beginning of the game and their offense took advantage of that.”
Palatine coach Paul Belo was also impressed with the way his team came back.
“We definitely have shown that our offense has the ability to take advantage of our opponent’s mistakes and come back from big deficits,” said Belo, whose Pirates are 6-1-1. “Our problem is that we need to eliminate that one bad inning that usually gets us in trouble each game.”
That bad inning was the bottom of third as Stevenson scored 5 runs on only 2 hits but took advantage of 4 errors. Clark Thompson had the lone RBI.
The Patriots also scored in the fourth as starting pitcher Elie Schwartz helped himself with a 2-run single.
Schwartz pitched the first 4¿ innings, allowing 4 runs on 5 hits. He struck out six, walked one and hit a batter.
“It seemed one inning my stuff was great and the next inning, I couldn’t get anybody out,” Schwartz said. “The biggest problem was that I wasn’t consistent with either my curve or my changeup and they took advantage.”
Schwartz had a good day at the plate, going 3-for-4. Henning had 3 singles for Palatine.
Stevenson coach Bob Mackey was not happy with the way his team gave up the lead.
“We left too many runners on base in the first three innings and it came back to haunt us,” Mackey said. “We let way too many scoring opportunities slip away from us.”