Baseball: Oswego East gets past Oswego
Oswego East played a solid fundamental game to win 5-2 over neighboring Oswego in the Southwest Prairie Conference on Thursday.
Winning pitcher Kyle Weller (3-2) limited the Panthers to two runs on four hits while striking out four batters. Gunnar Misna came on in the fifth inning to pick up the save and seal the win for the Wolves.
“Weller pitched a real good game and Gunnar closed the door,” said Matt Miller, who had two hits, two RBI and a run scored. “We got the job done today. It’s great momentum going into the playoffs.”
The Wolves (10-21, 6-15) opened the scoring in the first inning. Weller’s grounder was muffed at third base by Brandon Lentz, and he reached second base on a throwing error by shortstop Tim Wodzisz. Chris Cooper drove him in with a base hit.
Playing small-ball in the second inning, Miller doubled, went to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a groundout by Nick Mazzocchi to take a 2-0 lead after two innings.
“It was a great team baseball game today,” Wolves coach Jim Vera said. “We know we don’t have the type of offense to score 15-20 runs a game. But we do what we need to do to win games.”
Vera will not return to coach the team next year after five seasons as head coach to spend more time with his family. He will continue teaching at Oswego East.
In the third inning, the Panthers (15-16, 9-12) misplayed a fly ball to center by Jake Litkenhus to allow a run to scored, and Miller hit a two-run double to put the game away.
“You have to give credit to their pitchers,” Panthers coach Chris Neitzel said. “This is how we’ve been all year. We have to play error free. We made some miscues in the field, but when you only score two runs, you are not going to win too many games.”
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