Pitching gem, flurry of bunts leave NIC-10 baseball race fit to be tied with 4 games left
Boylan kept trying to make Hononegah play station-to-station baseball on Wednesday.
Hononegah didn’t want to. Not at first. Or even second. Maybe not even on third thought. But after Boylan threw out three over-aggressive Hononegah baserunners, the Indians won by bunting.
Over and over and over and over again.
“We do it a lot in practice and we do it often in games,” shortstop Jakob DeLeo said. “Bunting is a big part of the game.”
Bunts are supposed to help you eke across another run at the possible expense of a big inning. But this time, four straight bunts broke the game open in an 8-1 Hononegah win to help the Indians move back into a first-place tie in the NIC-10 two days after Boylan had beaten the four-time defending champions by the 10-run rule. Both teams are three games ahead of third-place Belvidere North, who lost two close games to Freeport this week.
More: Boylan and Hononegah add strange new chapter to baseball rivalry; updated NIC-10 standings
“We played good defense, swung the bat well and pitched great,” Hononegah left fielder Cameron Nelson said. “We came back great from Monday. We were executing bunts perfectly. We had to make them work and we came out on top.”
Four consecutive Hononegah batters reached first on bunts in a four-run sixth inning that broke open a 2-1 game. DeLeo and Evan Sayles briefly loaded the bases with back-to-back bunt singles. Briefly because Boylan catcher Ethan Mott picked a Hononegah runner off who had rounded third too far after Sayles’ bunt.
That was one inning after Hononegah (19-6, 13-1) was held to one run despite four hits and a walk because Mott threw out an attempted base stealer and another runner was thrown out in a rundown. A fourth Hononegah runner got trapped off base in the first inning, turning an infield line-out into a double play.
But after Sayles’ bunt, a Boylan error allowed Logan Edward to reach on a bunt. Nelson, who scored three runs, also reached on a bunt when Boylan elected to throw home and the runner — just barely — beat the throw. Bryce Ewing’s infield hit then drove in the fourth run of the inning to put Hononegah ahead 6-1.
“They made good plays with some nice bunts,” Boylan coach Matt Weber said. “We just didn’t make the better play.”
More: Hononegah baseball on a roll, sets up baseball showdown with Boylan
Those four insurance runs were plenty, with Ian Blankenship holding Boylan to one hit through his six innings.
“I was excited to come out and show them what I was made of,” Blankenship said of shutting Boylan down two days after the Titans scored 20 runs — more than Hononegah had given up in two of its past four 18-game conference seasons. “We were down after that last loss, but I knew we have hot bats and we were going to come out and do our job and get a little bit of revenge.”
“He set a great tone,” Nelson said. “Only allowing one run. That’s a great way to set the tone.”
Hononegah had 12 hits Wednesday, although five of them were infield hits. Boylan (17-9, 13-1), on the other hand, went from 17 hits Monday to one hit before a two-out single in the final inning.
“Blankenship pitched a phenomenal game,” Weber said. “He answered anything anybody asked. He came out and changed his style, pitching more breaking balls early, and threw us off.
“The fact that we split shows both teams are very good teams. We’re tied for first with four games to go.”
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: 4 consecutive bunts key to Hononegah win over Boylan, ties NIC-10 race
