Juenger’s pitching gem leads O’Fallon past Belleville East
O’Fallon junior pitcher Hayden Juenger
limited Belleville East to four hits as O’Fallon remained undefeated in the Southwestern Conference with a 3-0 win over the Lancers.
Juenger struck out four of the first five Lancers hitters, and the Panthers defense played error-free baseball as O’Fallon (13-1, 4-0) won an 11th-straight game.
“That’s exactly what we preach to our pitchers. Use the fastball to get ahead of the hitters. Hayden did a good job of getting ahead of the hitters all night,” O’Fallon coach Jason Portz said. “By getting ahead of the hitters and with the way our defense played today, I was very pleased. Actually, the defense on both sides was very good.
“I counted seven line drives that we hit tonight that were caught. If a few of those fall, maybe its a different game. Belleville East played very good defense tonight as well.”
Senior Joe Guithues drove in a run with a single in the first inning and added a second RBI in the seventh inning on a suicide squeeze.
Belleville East (5-6, 1-2) had runners in scoring position three times in the first five innings. But after Juenger gave up a leadoff single in the fifth inning to Austin Hitt, he retired the final nine batters to complete the shutout.
“I had a real good fastball early, and I got ahead of the hitters. That was what really helped me tonight,” Juenger said. “The last time out I thought I was flat. Tonight I was able to get on top of my pitches, and I had good movement on my fast ball. And the defense was great behind me. On offense, we were able to scratch out a couple of runs.”
Key sequence
Belleville East southpaw Ben Cruikshank pitched the first five innings, allowing just one run on four hits. Three of those hits came in the first inning when O’Fallon took a 1-0 lead.
Hayden Schaefer led off with a double and two outs later scored on a single by Jordan Richardson. Guithues then followed with his run-scoring single to put O’Fallon up 1-0.
But Cruikshank then settled down. After pitching out of a bases loaded jam in the third inning, the Lancers junior retired six of the last seven hitters he saw before being taken out after five innings.
“Ben did a good job,” Lancers coach Ryan Wiggs said. “He threw strikes, and I thought our defense was just very good tonight. We made some very good plays in the field. “On offense, we had runners at first and second twice and has a runner at second another time. We just didn’t get the clutch hit.”
East had its best scoring chance of the game in the second inning. With two outs, Gage Cruz and Jaden Webb singled to put runners on first and second. Hitt then chopped a slow roller down the third base line. Third baseman Jacob Dreyer fielded the ball and retired Hitt by a step for the final out.
This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 12:34 AM with the headline "Juenger’s pitching gem leads O’Fallon past Belleville East."