Wilmington shuts out Streator, wraps up Illinois Central Eight Conference title

STREATOR – The Wilmington Wildcats were only leading Streator by two little runs in the bottom of the fifth inning Monday when the host Bulldogs threatened with runners at the corners and one out, the top of the order due up.

Then the Bulldogs’ best threat to score to that point disappeared in a puff of sand, clay and silt.

Despite fumbling the ball and being enveloped in a cloud of bone-dry diamond dirt, Wilmington shortstop Ryan Kettman halted any potential Streator rally with a nifty double play. It preserved a shutout Kettman would later finish off for starting and winning pitcher Lucas Rink, the eventual 7-0 victory wrapping up a second straight outright Illinois Central Eight Conference championship for the Wildcats.

“Ball up the middle,” Kettman said, “and obviously the instinct with runners at first and [third] is try to get the double play. I fielded it, and then I went to flip it, and it got stuck in my glove. So I just took it myself and got the double play out of it.

“It’s just working together, trusting the pitcher and playing defense. ... We’ve finally clicked, found our togetherness and got on a winning streak. Back-to-back years winning conference? It’s nice to be back on top again.”

Wilmington improved to 19-7 overall and an uncatchable 12-1 in the ICE.

“This place is always tough for us to play at ... but we had the mentality that at some point our bats are going to come around,” Wilmington coach Mike Bushnell said. “We’re going to score some runs. We just needed to stick together. ...

“We value that [conference] record as well, and we just want to keep our winning ways going into the postseason.”

Streator – again a victim of too many errors (six on the day, leading to four unearned runs) and not enough hitting (only three singles, 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position) – slips to 10-17 on the spring, 4-9 in conference competition.

While Kettman’s momentum-halting double play and adventuresome but ultimately scoreless seventh inning on the mound relieving in a non-save situation certainly helped, Rink had things under control throughout. The Kankakee Community College-bound right-hander over six innings allowed only three hits and four walks while striking out a half-dozen.

His counterpart, Illinois Valley Community College-bound southpaw Jake Hagie, was effective as well. The Streator starter allowed just one earned run on five hits and six walks over 5⅔ innings, striking out a trio, but had to pitch from behind due to a pair of first-inning errors behind him, propelling the Wildcats to a 1-0 lead.

“Just a couple key errors there,” Streator coach Beau Albert said. “You know, Jake pitched his butt off, 1-0 going into the fifth. And last year it was the same thing, 1-0 all the way through between he and Rink.

“But we made a couple errors right away to give them the first one, and then we had a couple situations where we had guys on second, guys on third and just needed a hit, but couldn’t come up with one.”

There at 1-0 the score would remain until the top of the fifth. A Zach Ohlund single, a wild pitch and Cooper Holman’s RBI single up the middle made it 2-0 in favor of the visitors. The Kettman-begun twin killing preserved that two-run advantage before Wilmington assumed complete control with a two-run sixth (Dierks Geiss sacrifice fly) and three-run seventh (Brysen Meents one-run single, Rink two-run single).

Of the four innings in which Wilmington scored, three contained multiple Streator fielding or throwing errors.

Keegan Angelico, Isaiah Weibel and Joe Hoekstra provided the three Bulldogs hits.

For Wilmington, Rink (two hits, two RBIs), Kettman (double, two runs scored) and Ohlund (single, two runs scored) led the attack.

Streator is scheduled to visit Wilmington to complete the series and both teams’ ICE schedules Tuesday.