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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.

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