Baseball: Evanston takes advantage of Niles North blunders

Updated: May 24, 2012 10:03PM

In the first two innings of Thursday’s Class 4A Oak Park-River Forest Regional semifinal, Niles North’s first-round playoff game against Evanston transformed into what felt like a never-ending nightmare for the Vikings’ defense.

Niles North, which was defeated 9-2 by Evanston, committed three errors in the first inning to allow the then-hitless Wildkits to take a 2-0 advantage. The Vikings (16-20) compounded their mistakes with two errors in the second inning.

Evanston took full advantage of the Vikings’ second-inning blunders, scoring five runs to build an insurmountable 7-0 lead after two innings. Third baseman Brandon Vamarasi clubbed a two-run home run during that stretch.

“Once you have one error in the field, it starts to progress and it’s contagious,” Niles North senior David Schoenberg said. “We (couldn’t) get it out of our heads. We were just stuck in the same play over and over again.”

Evanston (17-18) advances to the Oak Park-River Forest Regional final with its victory. The Wildkits will play Oak Park-River Forest at 11 a.m. Saturday.

© 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.