Plainfield South capitalizes on Oswego mistakes

Updated: May 4, 2011 12:11PM

In just five innings of play Tuesday afternoon, Plainfield South sent 30 men to the plate against Oswego despite recording only seven hits. It was that kind of day for the host Panthers, who committed seven errors and allowed nine unearned runs in a 12-0 Southwest Prairie Conference loss.

“It’s tough to win when you do that,” said Oswego coach Chris Neitzel, whose team has lost six straight. “You make seven errors … that might be a record for us.”

Panthers’ starter Parker Meek was touched for a two-run home run by Jake Roberts in the first inning, but retired the Cougars in order in the second.

He began the third with a strikeout, and then the wheels fell off.

Two consecutive errors pushed a third run across, and then a third error in the inning set up a two-run triple by the Cougars’ Rick Salazar. A walk to Austin Curry then set the table for Cougars designated hitter Jesse Small.

Small took Meek deep for a three-run homer to make it 8-0, and the rout was on.

“We got some breaks and some free bases, but that’s baseball,” Cougars coach Phil Bodine said. “Parker has been throwing the crap out of the ball all year long. He’ll continue to pitch well all the rest of the year.”

Jimmy Lukaszek relieved Meek in the fourth, but was victimized by two errors. The Cougars (14-8, 7-5) scored another four runs.

John Hugunin and Kevin Tidaback went a combined 5-for-6 at the top of the order for Oswego (8-11, 4-9), but those were the only hits off Cougar starter Julian Clouse.

“Our top guys can get on, but we struggle to get them in,” Neitzel said. “You lose six in a row and you think pretty low of yourself, but you remember just a couple weeks ago we were playing pretty good baseball.”

© 2013 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.