Blackhawks recover from rough beginning

Offensive outburst helps Etter settle down in 13-4 victory

AURORA -- West Aurora senior pitcher Jeff Etter was making his fourth career postseason start Tuesday against Bolingbrook, so he does not get spooked easily.

Etter surrendered four runs in the top of the first, but he settled in, allowing only two hits the rest of the way in a 13-4 Blackhawks win.

West, the No. 12 seed in the Class 4A Hinsdale Central Regional, will face No. 5 seed Downers Grove North in the regional semifinals Thursday in Hinsdale at 4:30 p.m.

"I don't have the jitters that you usually have," Etter said of his experience. "I got those out of the way my sophomore and junior years. It's nice to have that kind of confidence out there."

It was not evident in the first, as the Raiders teed off on his first-pitch fastballs. They scored four runs on five hits, including a two-run home run by Andrew Flynn, in the first. But Etter (7-3) struck out four, walked one and allowed two more hits in the final six innings to earn the win.

"I don't know what happened in the first inning," West Aurora coach John Reeves said. "It was like he wasn't loose or he wasn't ready. I don't have an explanation for it."

Instead of building on that momentum, however, Bolingbrook (10-21) allowed the Blackhawks (17-16) back into the game. West got three of the runs back in the bottom of the first on a three-run double from sophomore Chris Richter. That rally came after a two-out error by the Raiders.

"We gave them extra outs with two outs and I think that's what killed us," Bolingbrook coach Chris Malinoski said. "It deflated us a little bit and we weren't able to recover from it."

West then broke the game open with four second-inning runs, including a two-run home run from Cory Walden.

A two-run double from Will Fuentes and an RBI triple from Nate Strusz keyed a four-run fifth inning and Kyle McCradic cracked a two-run home run to cap the scoring in the sixth.

That offense off Bolingbrook starter Anthony Bounamici (2-6) was in stark contrast to West's bats in a 3-1 win over the Raiders in April. West managed only five hits off of Bounamici that day, but touched him for 11 runs, five earned, on 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings Tuesday.

"As a pitcher, I came in a little flustered after allowing four runs in the first inning of a playoff game," Etter said. "You're not going to be feeling great. But then my team goes out there and scores three runs for me and I knew we were right back in it. I have a lot of confidence in our offense. We're streaky, but when we're on, we're on. The way we started, I knew we were going to score a lot of runs today."

Etter survived a scare in the fourth to stay in the game. While batting, he got out in front of a breaking pitch and fouled a ball that came right back up and hit him in the nose. He stayed in the game, but had X-Rays after the game to determine if he broke his nose.

"We were pretty concerned," Reeves said. "He's one of our top guys and we'd like to see him continue throwing the ball. It's a good thing he was able to bounce back from that."