Egan pitches Oswego East past Oswego

Updated: May 18, 2011 9:53PM

Eric Egan gave his best pitching performance of the year, and the Oswego East Wolves offense was as productive as an assembly line Wednesday.

Parlaying the two, the Wolves downed city rival Oswego 9-4 in a Southwest Prairie Conference matchup and evened the series at a game apiece. Oswego East improved to 9-18 overall and 6-14 in league play, while the Panthers slipped to 13-14 overall and 8-12 in the conference. Egan upped his season mark to 4-1.

Egan walked the bags full in the second inning before allowing a pair of unearned runs on a wild throw. Recording an out at home and fielding two ground balls himself, Egan stopped the bleeding. 

Carrying that momentum on his shoulder, Egan retired 12 of the next 14 batters over the next four innings. He struck out six in six plus innings. Egan started the seventh, but exited with two outs.

“That was by far Eric’s best outing of his career,” Oswego East coach Jim Vera said. “He made some huge pitches. The inning after he got in trouble he shut them down right away.”

“It was rough early, but you get in a groove once you start going,” Egan said. “My defense picked it up and it was no big deal — only two runs.” 

Rallying for four runs in the third inning, the Wolves gained the lead and seized control. Matt Miller started the rally with a single to left field and scored on a base hit by Cody Burton. Andy Jaskolski and Bobby Smith (3 RBI) followed with singles before Egan collected an RBI with a groundout. Adam Kaczmarek delivered a two-out line drive single to center field for a 4-2 advantage.

“I went to the plate with the mindset to make solid contact and put the ball in play and it worked,” said Kaczmarek who had three hits and two RBI. “We were taking advantage of the first pitch and thinking of taking the off-speed pitches to the opposite field.”

Kaczmarek added a crucial two-out RBI in the fifth after Jaskolski singled and advanced to second base on a wild pitch by Scott Allegretti. Waiting back on a two-strike pitch, Kaczmarek bounced the ball through the right side.

“(Allegretti) is a really good pitcher and I’ve played with him my whole Little League life,” Kaczmarek said. “He hits his spots, has good speed and changes speed, but we were able to make good contact today.”

Egan allowed a mere three hits while keeping the Panthers guessing. Tim Wodzisz doubled in the fourth for the Panthers first hit, and the Brandon Lentz singled in the seventh inning. John Hugunin crushed a home run to left field with two outs in the final frame.

“You’ve got to give all the credit to Egan,” Oswego coach Chris Neitzel said. “He did an outstanding job of keeping our hitters off balance. That was the difference in the ball game.

“We were only able to scratch a couple of hits, and in the second inning we had an opportunity to break it open. But he was just on cruise control after that.”

The Wolves continued producing, adding four runs in the sixth. Zach DiZillo and Burton singled before Smith knocked in two runs with a base hit. Egan added a double to the right field fence. Just another part of the assembly line.

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