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28 | April 18, 2019 | The highland park landmark sports<br />
hplandmark.com<br />
Baseball<br />
Giants drop first<br />
conference game<br />
David Jaffe, Freelance Reporter<br />
It’s still fairly early in the season,<br />
but the Giants have their<br />
work cut out for them.<br />
Playing in their first Central<br />
Suburban League game of the<br />
year, the Giants stumbled against<br />
New Trier, losing 11-2 at home<br />
on April 9.<br />
Highland Park (5-6) fell into<br />
quite the hole early on, allowing<br />
six runs in the first inning,<br />
but the Giants settled down for a<br />
couple of innings. The issue for<br />
the Giants is being able to string<br />
together strong innings. The<br />
team mustered just three hits and<br />
made five errors.<br />
“We’ll have a couple of innings<br />
both defensively and at the<br />
plate where we’re playing well,<br />
but we haven’t really been able<br />
to keep that going for the entire<br />
game,” Highland Park coach Jason<br />
Newburger said. “You have<br />
to be consistent if you want to<br />
compete in a conference as good<br />
as this one.”<br />
Offensively for a good portion<br />
of the game, the Giants were<br />
able to get some runners on but<br />
couldn’t move them over. Highland<br />
Park finally scored in the<br />
fifth inning, when Jason Bernstein<br />
got on base with an infield<br />
hit. Sammy Dubin then drove in<br />
a pair of runs with a single to put<br />
the Giants on the board.<br />
“We had a lot of innings where<br />
we stung the baseball really hard<br />
but just hit it in the wrong spots,”<br />
Newburger said. “I liked that we<br />
kept fighting and were able to<br />
put a couple of runs up late. The<br />
last inning Jeremy (Frankel) had<br />
a hard hit but it was a lineout<br />
that turned into a double play. It<br />
still comes down to consistency<br />
though, and the third and fourth<br />
innings we struck out five times.<br />
We need to string together good<br />
innings.”<br />
The visiting Trevians were on<br />
fire offensively to start, initially<br />
through small ball and then with<br />
the long ball.<br />
Patrick Jodloman was hit by<br />
a pitch with the bases loaded,<br />
putting New Trier (6-4) on the<br />
board. He was the third straight<br />
batter hit by a pitch. Sam Harvey’s<br />
sacrifice fly increased the<br />
lead to 2-0, and then an infield<br />
hit by Donald Stricklin added<br />
another run.<br />
“We did a good job moving<br />
runners over and bringing<br />
them home,” New Trier coach<br />
Mike Napoleon said. “We’ve<br />
struggled to this point bringing<br />
runners in the way we did today.<br />
So we’ve been preaching about<br />
how important scoring runs on<br />
outs can be. We also didn’t strike<br />
out much today and didn’t have<br />
many popups. So having those<br />
things along with some miscues<br />
on their side allowed us to take<br />
advantage when we had runners<br />
on base.”<br />
New Trier didn’t score just on<br />
Danny Ruiz throws a pitch in a recent Giants game. Photo submitted by Phil Bach<br />
the fundamental plays either. Eddie<br />
Harvey broke the game open<br />
in the first, crushing a three-run<br />
home run to left field.<br />
John Miller’s RBI groundout<br />
allowed New Trier to tack<br />
on another run in the second.<br />
Jodloman’s RBI double made<br />
it 8-0 in the fourth. The variety<br />
of ways the Trevians brought<br />
in runs continued in the fifth, as<br />
Brett Johnson reached on an error<br />
that scored Stricklin. Harvey<br />
then scored when Henry Pelinski<br />
grounded into a double play.<br />
“Honestly it wasn’t just the<br />
fact that we brought runners<br />
in through a variety of ways, it<br />
was that we kept it up the whole<br />
game, even after the first inning,”<br />
Harvey said. “We put<br />
ourselves in scoring position so<br />
if we had flyouts or groundouts,<br />
we still had a chance at adding<br />
more runs.”<br />
It also wasn’t just the offense<br />
that stood out. Pitcher Andrew<br />
Kost had a no-hitter through four<br />
and two- thirds innings. He allowed<br />
three hits and walked two<br />
with five strikeouts through five<br />
innings.<br />
“He got out of some situations<br />
early in the game and then in the<br />
middle innings he was great,”<br />
Napoleon said. “He almost had<br />
a no-hitter. It was a really strong<br />
performance. Our pitching and<br />
defense have led us and hopefully<br />
we took a step forward today<br />
on offense with how we were<br />
able to bring in runners.”<br />
THIS WEEK IN ...<br />
GIANTS VARSITY ATHLETICS<br />
BOYS TENNIS<br />
■ ■April 18 - at Maine East, 4:30<br />
p.m.<br />
■ ■April 23 - hosts Maine West,<br />
4:30 p.m.<br />
BASEBALL<br />
■ ■April 18 - at Maine East, 4:45<br />
p.m.<br />
■ ■April 23 - at Maine East, 4:45<br />
p.m.<br />
BOYS LACROSSE<br />
■April ■ 18 - hosts Glenbrook<br />
South, 4:45 p.m.<br />
■ ■April 23 - at New Trier, 7 p.m.<br />
GIRLS LACROSSE<br />
■ ■April 23 - at Jones College, 4:45<br />
p.m.<br />
■ ■April 24 - hosts Maine South,<br />
4:45 p.m.<br />
SOFTBALL<br />
■ ■April 18 - hosts Glenbrook<br />
North, 4:45 p.n.<br />
■ ■April 23 - at Maine West, 4:45<br />
p.m.<br />
BOYS GYMNASTICS<br />
■ ■April 18 - at Niles North, 6 p.m.<br />
GIRLS SOCCER<br />
■ ■April 22 - hosts Maine East,<br />
4:45 p.m.<br />
GIRLS TRACK & FIELD<br />
■ ■April 23 - hosts tri-meet, 4:30<br />
p.m.<br />
BOYS TRACK & FIELD<br />
■ ■April 23 - quad meet at<br />
Glenbrook South, 4:30 p.m.<br />
BOYS VOLLEYBALL<br />
■ ■April 23 - hosts Maine East, 6<br />
p.m.