Nick Michalek pitches Sandwich past Marengo

SANDWICH — When the Sandwich baseball team needed a big pitch in Monday’s Kishwaukee River Conference game junior Nick Michalek made it.

Michalek, after allowing an unearned run in the first inning, worked out of four potential jams to keep Marengo off the scoreboard the rest of the way, while the homestanding Indians were able to tie the game in the third and push across what proved to be the winning run in the fifth in a 2-1 victory.

The Sandwich righthander allowed just four hits with three walks and seven strikeouts in the complete-game effort.

“My fastball was really my go to pitch today,” Michalek said. “I was mixing it around but mostly trying to keep that pitch off the plate a little bit. It was working so I stuck with it. A few times I went with my off-speed pitch in a fastball count as well, just trying to keep them off-balance.

“I felt like after the first inning I really found a good rhythm. (Marengo) was able to get some guys on here and there, and a couple times in scoring position, but I just had confidence that I’d be able to make a good pitch, or my defense would make a good play behind me to keep them from scoring.”

The triumph improved Sandwich to 13-13 overall and 10-2 in league play, now just a half a game back of first-place Johnsburg in the KRC standings.

Marengo, which fell to 17-6 and 9-3, received an outstanding pitching performance from Michael Kirchhoff as he allowed just two hits, one earned run with three walks and 12 strikeouts.

The visitors scored for the only time in the first as Robert Heuser coaxed a one-out walk, went to second on the first of two singles in the game by Kirchhoff and later scored on a throwing error. From there Marengo left six men on base, four in scoring position.

“Michael pitched a great game for us,“ Marengo coach Nick Naranjo said. ”He is one of the reasons why we are one of the top teams in the conference. He did everything he could and more for us today.

“We had a couple of walks and a couple of errors that gave them a couple of runs, and we just didn’t have remotely enough offense we needed to win. In the fourth inning we put a guy on second with nobody out and just couldn’t get him around to score. We miss a lot of opportunities; it just wasn’t a good day for us.

Sandwich tied the game in the third on a sacrifice fly by Griffin Somlock.

In the fifth, Jeffery Ashley drew a two-out walk and stole second on a strike two swing and miss by Braden Behringer. On the next pitch, Behringer slapped a grounder into right field to bring Ashley around to score.

“Jeffery Ashley had a great stolen base the pitch before to set things up,” Sandwich coach Jason VanPelt said. “I thought (Kirchoff’s) leg kick was pretty high to the plate and had a good feeling Jeffery, who has pretty good speed, could make it. Then Braden shortened his swing with two-strikes and was able to sneak one in between the first and second basemen to give us the lead.”

Michalek allowed a leadoff walk in the sixth, but from there retired the final six batters he faced.

Sandwich has now won nine of its last 12 games.

“We started the season with a relatively young team, but a lot of the younger guys have really done a great job of finding their roles and have gotten better with each game,” VanPelt said. “We just have to keep working on getting better and trusting in each other.”

The teams will play again at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Marengo.