Prep Baseball: Maciaszek's hit lifts Rockets

ELGIN -- Burlington Central took longer than it would have liked to Friday night, but it still finished the job.

Mike Maciaszek delivered the game-winning RBI single as the Rockets beat Westminster Christian 6-5 in nine innings at Trout Park.

However, Central was forced to play extras because it couldn't hold a 5-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh.

"Unfortunately that's been a theme for us this season," Rockets coach Kyle Nelson said. "We've had a few games where we've given up multiple-run leads once we get to the final inning. I don't know if we take the game for granted, or what. I just know we have to figure something out once we get to the seventh inning."

Central (13-10) mounted a rally of its own trailing 2-1 in the top of the sixth inning, and did it without the benefit of a base hit.

Casey Schuring tossed the first five innings for the Warriors (21-6) before giving way to Steve Berglund. After Berglund walked Ryan Mattes with one out, Westminster dropped a Bill Rodriguez popup behind first base.

Berglund hit Maciaszek with two outs to load the bases before walking Bryan Bell to force in the tying run. Berglund would then hit Austin Jarvis and George Heller to force in another pair and hand the Rockets a 4-2 lead.

"That was a situation where (Schuring's) pitch count was getting pretty high and we wanted to give Berglund some experience in a pressure situation," Westminster coach Jeff Moeller said.

Rodriguez drove in another run in the top of the seventh to give Central a 5-2 lead.

Rockets starter David Hartwell came out to start the seventh but ran into trouble, giving up four straight singles, including a Tyler Beachler base hit that drove in a run to make it 5-3.

Bell (2-3) came on in relief, but gave up a long two-run single to Carter Ward, who came up lame at first base.

But Bell would settle down and get out of the inning and scattered a hit and a walk while pitching around an error to get the win.

Brandon Siewert (7-1) took his first loss of the year after yielding the winning run.