Baseball: Lucas Hicks authors 13-strikeout complete game shutout, pitches Westmont past Plano

PLANO – Lucas Hicks bobbed his head to the between-inning music Friday, pumping in fastballs as tunes pumped through the sound system.

He was indeed in a groove.

Hicks, Westmont’s senior right-hander, said he was guilty of overthrowing earlier in the season, hunting for strikeouts at the expense of walks. Lately, his approach has been to hit his spots and limit walks. He had the best of both worlds Friday.

Hicks struck out 13 in a dominant two-hit complete game, and didn’t walk a batter until the seventh inning. Westmont blew open a low-scoring game with seven runs over the final two innings and went on to a 9-0 nonconference win at Plano.

Hicks threw 63 of 96 pitches for strikes, blowing a high fastball past a Plano hitter on the 96th pitch for his 13th and final strikeout.

“My approach, I said to my catcher let’s hit our spots and not try to overpower them. When I hit those spots, it feels even better,” Hicks said. “I can go to the offspeed and the fastball looks even faster.”

For Hicks (4-1), the signature performance started coincidentally by putting pen to paper.

“I got myself a notebook,” the Saint Xavier University recruit said. “I heard about people writing down their goals, writing what they felt. I got myself a notebook, what I was feeling so I could replicate that the next start.”

Hicks went to three balls against two Plano hitters in the first inning, but only went to three balls one more time between the second and sixth inning.

He struck out the side in the second and third, Plano’s first hit Jack Decker’s bunt single with two outs in the third. Jason Phillips had the Reapers’ only other hit leading off the fourth, but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double.

“He had everything working today,” said Westmont coach D.J. Cocks, who coached at Plano for four seasons from 2007-2011. “His fastball was dominant and his offspeed he could throw in there every once in a while to keep them off balance. When he pitches like that we’re a really hard team to beat.”

Plano’s been a hard team to beat, winners of six straight coming in, and a hard lineup to hold down. The Reapers (19-8) were hitting .344 as a team coming in, averaging nearly 10 runs per game. But Plano on Friday managed just six total baserunners, none reaching third base, and was shut out for just the third time this season.

“Frustrating day offensively; didn’t have the approach we normally have,” Plano coach Nate Hill said. “He [Hicks] was hitting his spots, had a little velocity, but we lacked a little bit of aggressiveness, waiting back a little bit, a little in between our swing decisions. As the game wore on we didn’t make an adjustment.”

Hicks throws four pitches – a four-seam and two-seam fastball, 12-to-6 knuckle curve, and a circle changeup. When he needed it Friday, though, Hicks went to the heat, and didn’t even go to the well for the two-seamer.

“I feel like when I get the command up in the count I can really let the fastball go,” Hicks said. “That’s my go-to pitch, but I don’t want it to be just my go-to pitch. I want to be able to rely on the offspeed.”

Hicks also reached base three times offensively, leading off the game with a fluky pop-fly that hit the Plano first basemen’s leg and bounced foul for a double, and he scored on a sacrifice fly. Westmont freshman No. 9 hitter Jaxson Chinea had an infield single that scored Nikolai Baldwin in the second, walked in the fourth and seventh and hit a bleeder up the middle for a two-run single in Westmont’s three-run sixth.

Briggs Templeton also reached four times for the Sentinels (17-7-1, who won their fourth straight.

“Jaxson down there, he causes chaos,” Cocks said. “He can bunt, he has speed, he does exactly what we wanted. He’s only a freshman but he snuck in on varsity right away and giving me every reason to keep in there.”

Plano has good reason to put this game in the rearview mirror.

The Reapers, up a game on Marengo in the Kishwaukee River Conference race, travel to second-place Marengo Tuesday in the resumption of a game they lead 12-10, then have a home-and-home with third-place Sandwich Wednesday and Thursday.

“We have to clear the mechanism and come back. That is our focus right now, quite frankly,” Hill said. “We took Phillips out at 75 pitches so he’s available to come back if and when we need him. We want to make sure all our options are available. Hopefully we get things straightened out as we head into a really big week.”