Once Lindbergh’s offense regained the lead, pitcher Evan Henson made sure it would stick.
After Northwest scored a pair of runs in the top of the fourth inning to tie the game April 19 at Lindbergh, the Flyers answered right back with four runs in the bottom of the frame. Henson faced the minimum number of batters through the final three innings, with the help of a double play and a Lion caught trying to steal, as Lindbergh held on to win 7-2.
“Those last three innings, I just coasted right through because I had so many insurance runs,” said Henson, who improved to 4-1 with a 2.43 ERA. “It just makes you feel so much better out there. I thought the fifth (inning) was going to be my last, but then getting all those runs really helped me, let me get through the rest of the game.”
Lindbergh dropped a 2-0 decision at Fort Zumwalt South on Friday to end the week 11-6 overall and 4-1 in the Suburban West Conference. Northwest went to Waynesville on Saturday and won both games of the doubleheader 15-2 and 4-3 to improve to 5-9 overall and 1-4 in the conference.
“Evan hit his spots there in the last couple innings, and (Northwest has) aggressive hitters,” Lindbergh head coach Darin Scott said. “They hit the ball on the nose a couple times, just right at somebody, and when you get a couple quick outs, that makes the inning that much easier.”
It makes everything that much easier for the pitcher to have his offense respond after what Henson said was probably his one really bad pitch of the game.
Staked to an early 2-0 lead, thanks in part to an RBI double by cleanup hitter Julian Cintel, Henson gave up two singles and a walk in the first three innings, with a rare 9-3 double play helping him out of a two-on, one-out situation in the second. But after Northwest’s Dustin Reese led off the fourth with a single lofted into right-center field, Andrew Benton blasted a double over the head of left fielder Ryan Waller to easily score Reese. Benton moved to third base on a groundout, and one out later, third baseman Aaron Moss mishandled an Evan Nault grounder, allowing Benton to score and tie the game 2-2.
“I missed high,” Henson said of the pitch to Benton. “You don’t miss high in this league, and he sent it out there. They capitalized on my mistake.”
“Andrew is a big kid and he hits the ball hard,” Northwest assistant coach Kyle Wampler said. “He does that multiple times a game.”
But as quickly as the Lions snatched momentum, Lindbergh took it right back.
“In any high school sport, momentum, I always say, is a cruel mistress,” Wampler said. “It can turn on you. She can give it all to you, then she can pull it away just as quick.”
Northwest starting pitcher Tim Hughes invited much of the trouble in the fourth as he hit the first two batters. After Zeb Roos struck out, Moss hit a sharp grounder past the diving effort of third baseman Jake Winstead to drive in Tyler West.
“We were just waiting for somebody to really break through and get that big hit,” Scott said. “Aaron Moss made a mistake at third, cost us a run, and then comes back and picks himself up with an RBI single to take the lead.”
Hughes then plunked his third batter of the inning, Waller, to load the bases and Wampler brought in Tommy Fortune.
“Tim has been very consistent all year, and that was one of those things where he came in and said, ‘Man, coach, I just don’t have it,’” Wampler said. “I asked him to go back out there and grind it out for me, and he did that. He kept us in it and gave us a chance to win.”
After getting Cintel to look at a called third strike, Fortune went to a full count on Brendan Meissner with a chance to get Northwest out of further trouble.
“Tommy comes in and we’re right there, just one pitch away,” Wampler said. “With us allowing only one run at that point, I’m telling my guys on the bench, ‘Hey, 3-2, two out, this is a huge pitch. A huge pitch,’ and I’m sure they were thinking the same thing on their side.”
Meissner came through with a drive up the middle that scored two runs, and after center fielder Austin Jerger bobbled the ball, Waller was able to score all the way from first base to put Lindbergh ahead 6-2.
“Meissner’s been hitting the ball hard right at people for about four or five games in a row here, and he finally got one to sneak through, right up the middle, scored three there, which was huge,” said Scott, whose team added a run in the fifth on an RBI single by West.
“That’s one of our calling cards. We try to answer back. If somebody gets one, we try to get two. The guys kind of adhere to that a little bit, and they like trying to get that done.”
That hit would be the difference maker, which Wampler said has been the case for much of the season.
“That’s kind of been our thing all year long is, it’s one inning,” Wampler said. “We talk to the guys about it, and we had a long talk at practice the other day that if we can get through those innings, grind through those innings, eventually it’ll happen where we’ll get through that error, we’ll get through that walk, that hit batter. We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.”