Hot-hitting Naperville Central rolls on

In large part due to the grind of playing nearly every day, the game of baseball is all about consistency.

Finding that consistency on a daily basis can be the fine line that separates good teams from bad teams.

In Naperville Central’s case, being consistent is becoming very easy.

For the third straight day, the seventh-seeded Redhawks sent 10 men to the plate in a multi-run inning while the pitching once again held the opposition to one lone run en route to dispatching of No. 6 Willowbrook 12-1 in six innings Wednesday in a Glenbard South Regional quarterfinal.

Following the lead of seniors Ian Lewandowski and Sean Goblet on Monday and Tuesday, junior left-hander Jeff Schank was the beneficiary of another prolific offensive output.  

Schank went the distance, limiting the Warriors to three hits and fanning four.

“I was just trying to pitch for contact,” Schank said. “Just try to make them hit the ball. I have good fielders behind me. (I was) just getting good groundballs.”

To illustrate that point, consider that all 18 outs he recorded didn’t leave the infield. The biggest out of those 18 he would record all afternoon couldn’t have been timed more perfectly.

After he began the second by retiring the first two men he saw, Schank issued a walk and gave up back-to-back hits, including a RBI single by Steve Ferguson, to place runners on second and third.

With Nick Rogans at the plate, Schank tried to pick Ferguson off first. Ferguson got in a run-down between first and second, enabling Mike Rothmund to make a dash towards the plate.

Shortstop Nick Lopez made a perfect peg to catcher Brian Schiemann to nail Rothmund at home for the third out of the inning.

Lopez’s throw seemed to settle Schank down as he retired the next seven he saw and retired 11 of the last 14.

“It was a huge play. Two great parts about that play was Ian Lewandowski, who had a great day at first base, he gets the ball to the shortstop quickly – who then has a chance to make a play at the plate,” Naperville Central coach Mike Stock said. “Two big parts to that play and it was great execution. That was a big play in this game.”

Two days after getting seven runs in the fifth Monday against Downers Grove South and scoring five runs in the sixth on Tuesday against Glenbard East, Naperville Central put up a five-run fourth that turned a 3-1 game into an 8-1 advantage.

Spearheading the third straight offensive onslaught were Lopez and Schiemann, who both went 3-for-4 and combined for three RBI. Seven different Redhawks had at least one hit.

“I just think we’re hungry. We want to win,” Lopez said. “I just think everyone has confidence and everyone wants to do (well). So we’re all just chipping in and doing our part to win.”

That hunger now turns towards the direction of fourth-seeded Neuqua Valley, which eliminated Benet earlier Wednesday afternoon, and the task of winning a summer state regional title for the first time since 2005.

“The neat thing about this is it’s two separate tournaments. Different from the spring, this is a tournament,” Stock said. “We’re playing for a championship (Thursday). The best reward (is) we get to keep playing. It’d be exciting (to reach the Phil Lawler Summer Classic). But right now, each day it’s been a couple new heroes.

“We’re all about Neuqua. There’s something out there afterwards, but right now we’re all about playing at 10 (Thursday) morning.”   

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