Northwood players after Tuesday night’s tournament victory. (PHOTOS: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
Northwood’s baseball team had two big innings Tuesday evening on the way to a 17-4 victory over Downers Grove, Ill. in the Ryan Lemmon Invitational at the Great Park Stadium.
The Timberwolves (6-12) won their second game in a row in the tournament, banging out 17 hits. Northwood, the designated visiting team, scored six runs in the second inning and eight runs in the seventh inning.
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“The last two days, we’ve kind of gotten complimentary baseball,” said Northwood Coach Ben Owens. “We’re playing better defense, which helps our pitchers which in turn brings the bats alive. The most important thing is trying to keep runs off the board and keep guys off the base.,
“We didn’t do the best job of today, I think we had 12 walks. We’re looking at little details to clean up as we move forward but we will take a win any time we can get one.”
Northwood got great offensive production from leadoff hitter Gabriel Ibasitas who had three hits, including an RBI single in the second inning and an RBI triple in the fifth inning. He also scored three runs.
The second batter in the order Bert Chubb also contributed, going 4 for 6 with two runs scored and an RBI.
Colin Laurent also contributed offensively going 2 for 4 with a triple in the second inning that drove in two runs.
Noah Kim also had a two-run single in the second inning, Sam Wagner had an RBI single and Gavin Stokes doubled and scored a run. Jourdan Garcia also singled and scored a run, one of three he had in the game.
Downer’s Grove (3-2) answered with two runs in the bottom of the second inning. Billy Skweres was hit by a pitch to drive in one run and Jackson Paige drove in another on a groundout. Northwood turned a double play with the bases loaded to prevent the Mustangs from getting closer.
Northwood added another run in the fourth inning, two more in the fifth inning and eight more in the seventh, cashing in four hit batters, two errors and two hits.
Owens emptied his bench putting in back-ups once Northwood had a comfortable lead.
Ethan Tsou started on the mound for the Timberwolves before being relieved by James Goodloe in the second inning. Oliver Painting came on in the fourth inning and pitched the rest of the way.
“Ethan struggled early, which is why we went to James a little earlier than we expected,” Owens said. “He just walked too many guys but we were able to pitch out of jams, which is a really good thing and we made some good defensive plays behind him, especially with the bases loaded in the second inning which really helped us and we were able to kind of build off of that lead.”
Downer’s Grove added another run in the seventh inning.
It was a happy group of Timberwolves after the lengthy contest.
“I thought the game was really, really good for us,” said Ibasitas, a junior. “We’ve been struggling recently, obviously we’ve lost a lot in league but I thought this win for us was huge. Overall, it was a team effort to get all those hits and I thought we looked really, really loose out there and we played like ourselves. I just hope we can continue this on to league and keep having fun.”
Northwood broke an eight-game losing streak with a 2-1 victory over Chico from Northern California on Monday.
“Bert Chubb was reallly good on the mound against Chico,” Owens said. “He had five innings pitching and then Joseph Kim came in and closed and Gabriel had a big hit, a triple yesterday to score a run. He’s really been swinging really well, hopefully he’s getting the ball on the mound and he can keep us moving in the right direction.”
The tournament wraps up on Wednesday. Downer’s Grove will play Chico at 10 a.m. in the stadium while Northwood will meet San Dimas at Great Park field nine at 6:15 p.m.
The championship game will feature St. Paul vs. Ganesha at 7 p.m. at the Great Park Stadium.
For the full schedule go to the Ryan Lemmon Foundation website
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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