Dundee-Crown rallies past Prairie Ridge

Updated: April 26, 2011 11:03PM

Ominous rain clouds descended on Dundee-Crown with the Chargers trailing by seven runs in the second inning to Prairie Ridge on Tuesday. As rain started to accumulate, so to did the Charger runs.

When all was said and done in the second inning, the rain had stopped and D-C had matched the nine-run half inning that Prairie Ridge had put up in the top of the inning.

Losing 11-9 after two innings, Prairie Ridge seemingly had all the air taken out of its sails and eventually lost 20-11.

D-C (11-9, 8-4 Fox Valley Conference) started the scoring in the bottom of the first inning when Scott Nowicke took the third pitch of the inning out of the park. Catcher Dylan Kissack then knocked in another run with an RBI single to make the score 2-0.

Erik Brewer (2-2) went out to defend the 2-0 lead in the top of the second, but found that lead wouldn’t last. An infield single from the Wolves’ Lucas Keller started an avalanche of soft singles and errors from the D-C defense.

No hit in the inning resulted in more than one RBI as each batter made enough contact to keep the line moving.

“I think that half inning set baseball back 20 years,” said D-C coach Jon Sawyer. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an inning as bad as that in my coaching career.”

Sawyer gave a few words of advice before the Chargers went out for the bottom of the second. The inspirational speech worked as the first two batters reached before Steve Schwartz slammed a three-run homer to bring his team within striking distance.

“Coach just gave us a few words, told us to make some contact and to get a few runs here and there,” Schwartz said. “In my at-bat I was just trying to make some contact, but I got ahead in the count and after pulling a ball foul, I knew if I could hold back long enough I would be able to send it a long way.”

The Chargers went on to score six more runs. Kissack knocked in two runs with a single to make the score 9-8. Kissack finished his day 5-for-5 with five RBI and a home run. Nowicke plated the last run of the inning with a sacrifice fly to make the score 11-9.

PR (3-13, 1-6) never recovered from the bottom of the second. D-C scored in every inning, preventing the Wolves from making a comeback. The closest the visitors came to the Chargers was in the top of the fifth when they scored two to make the score 13-11. D-C scored five in the bottom of the inning, however, quieting any notion of a comeback.

PR coach Glen Pecoraro was so disappointed in his team’s effort in the later innings that he put his players through a round of conditioning exercises in the outfield. While the Wolves were running, Sawyer was busy congratulating his starting pitcher for battling through the top of the second inning.

“I just told the team that I thought Brewer was our MVP of tonight,” said Sawyer of Brewer, who managed to go 4.2 innings. “Even in the big inning he didn’t let the defensive miscues get to him and he was able to battle through.”

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