Wheaton North rallies past Ludwig, Redhawks

Updated: May 5, 2011 9:00PM

Blessed with the fact its rotation is led by one of the best pitchers in the state, Naperville Central undoubtedly feels good whenever he toes the rubber.

Throughout his two-plus years on the varsity, senior left-hander Dan Ludwig has carried a heavy burden as his 20-2 career record coming into his start against Wheaton North attests.

But the Redhawks fell into the potentially ill-timed trap of relying on Ludwig to do the majority of the work as Wheaton North eventually got to him in coming from behind to earn a 4-2 victory over the Redhawks Thursday.  

Andrew Mamlic went the distance on the mound and Micah Penn slugged a two-run homer to pace the Falcons.

On the afternoon the defending Class 4A state champions learned that they had garnered the fourth seed in the Class 4A Neuqua Valley Sectional despite coming into Thursday’s play with seven losses, their offense failed their ace.

“To win a championship, you have to discipline yourself and got to have great at-bats,” Naperville Central coach Bill Seiple said. “You got to play great defense and you got to make great pitches. (Wheaton North) is a kind of a team that we had to better than we were (Thursday) in order to beat.”

After getting its first three men on base to begin its half of the first inning off Wheaton North right-hander Mamlic with three straight hits, including a two-run homer from Ian Lewandowski, Naperville Central (15-8, 10-4 DuPage Valley) seemed to relax a bit on offense, thinking Ludwig would do what he normally does: roll without much difficulty.

But after retiring the first 10 men in order, difficulty started to come for Ludwig (5-2) in the fifth as the Falcons used a pair of hits to cut the Redhawk lead in half to 2-1.

One inning later, the pressure intensified as Wheaton North sent eight men to the plate and recorded five hits off Ludwig, highlighted by Penn’s two-run homer with one out that gave the Falcons their first lead of the afternoon at 3-2.

“They’re a good hitting team. I left up a couple bad pitches, and they took (advantage),” said Ludwig, who gave up nine hits and fanned nine while going the distance.

The last of three consecutive hits off Ludwig in the frame, a RBI single from Falcons’ pinch-hitter Kevin Fahy, pushed the lead to 4-2, and Mamlic did the rest.

Settling down after the shaky first, Mamlic tossed a complete game of his own by only surrendering two more hits the rest of the way as the Redhawks turned in 14 at-bats that lasted three pitches or less.  

“I thought, if anything, the only thing that was discouraging was that once we got up on them, I thought that we just didn’t have good at-bats,” Seiple said. “We didn’t keep continuing the pressure on them. I think that was more of the difference. Luddy was Luddy. He gave us a chance.”

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