Entirely different game
LOCKPORT -- Bad new for future opponents of the Lockport High School baseball team:
The lull seems to have ended.
Two days after failing to execute in a costly 6-2 SouthWest Suburban Blue loss to Joliet Township, Lockport turned the tables on the Steelmen 11-1 in five innings Saturday at Ed Flink Field.
Jon Cisna felt it. The junior left-hander worked 4 2/3 innings and struck out eight. He allowed two hits, neither of which was hit hard. He walked four but generally was ahead in the count.
"What Jon did was get ahead all day," Lockport coach Steve Stanciek said. "He was 0-2, 1-2 quite a bit. The breaking ball becomes more effective when you do that.
"I think that was more strikeouts today than he's ever had in a game."
"How many was it?" Cisna asked. "Eight? Yeah, that probably is the most. Usually I pitch to contact. Today, I got 'em out on the curve a lot. I got the fastball over to get ahead, and that makes it easier for them to chase the curves."
The starting lineup for JT (18-10, 8-5) features six left-handed hitters, and Cisna took advantage. He struck out the 1-2 hitters in the Steelmen lineup back-to-back in the first and third innings.
"Coach Markelz (Butch, the Lockport pitching coach) told me I had to work on dominating the left-handers, they have so many of them," Cisna said.
"Their pitcher had a great game," JT coach Terry Piazza said. "He kept us off balance.
"We've been doing OK against left-handers all year. We just didn't make adjustments at the plate. I don't know that we hit a ball well all day."
Senior righth-hander Brandon Duplessis relieved Cisna and got a three-pitch strikeout on what would become the final JT hitter. In an 11-1 game, such a feat normally is no big deal, but this was different.
Duplessis, the staff ace, has been nursing a knee injury and had not pitched since the second conference game in early April.
"He's been champing at the bit for a while now," Stanicek said. "He's got a brace on the knee but has been doing some work, and we have been looking for an opportunity to get him into a game. It was nice to see him throw three pitches and get a guy out."
"It's been awhile since Duplessis was out there," Lockport senior shortstop Mike Frigo said. "If he's back, it gives us three strong pitchers, and we can go into the playoffs with confidence. We're hoping we can beat Stagg next week and maybe somebody can help us out and beat Sandburg once, too."
The other part of the equation -- offense -- had been missing during the Porters' recent struggles. That changed this weekend.
"We played well against Oak Forest," Stanicek said. "Derrell Williams went the distance and pitched very well, and we beat a good team.
"Today, we broke out the bats, finally."
The Porters finished with 11 hits against three JT pitchers. Mike Aguilar's single to left ended it with nobody out in the bottom of the fifth.
Frigo had a triple, two singles and a walk and drove in three runs. Anthony Munari chipped in with a bunt single and a two-run single. Tyler Willis tripled in two runs. Ricky Guth's infield hit knocked in a run, and Cisna ignited the Porters' six-run second inning with a hard single to left.
The bats were alive, and so was effective bunting.
"Our philosophy is to try to execute that type of ball," Stanicek said. "Bunts, the running game ... yesterday and today, we did it.
"We don't have the type of lineup that is going to score 10 runs every game. But we made a couple of changes in the lineup yesterday that seemed to create some energy, and it was good today that there was a lot of team energy on the bench."
Interesting what a dose of small ball can do.
"We were out here early today working on our bunting, we got a couple of them down and they didn't make the plays on them," Frigo noted. "We're working on taking the ball the other way, too. We're coming together, hitting as a team."
Joliet scored its only run in the fifth on a two-out infield hit and throwing error after two walks, making the only run off Cisna unearned.
"They hit the ball hard, they hit it soft," Piazza said. "They made the plays and we didn't. There are no excuses."
