Noah Hallahan stars on mound, at plate as Geneva evens series with Lake Park

GENEVA – Tuesday’s DuKane Conference baseball matchup between host Geneva and Lake Park, the second of a three-game series, was all about Vikings pitcher Noah Hallahan.

While not quite everything began and ended with him in an 11-1 six-inning victory, it came pretty close to being the case.

Hallahan pitched every inning for the Vikings (13-5, 2-2) and had 13 strikeouts while giving up one run on four hits. He struck out the side twice and had a stretch where he fanned six of seven batters.

“He threw strikes,” said Geneva coach Brad Wendell. “He had his offspeed for (strikes), he had his fastball for (strikes), and he competed in the zone. So I’m really happy with the way he got after it and how competitive he looked, even into the fifth inning and sixth inning.”

Hallahan also had the biggest blow of a five-run first inning in which Geneva batted around. The first three batters reached and were responsible for the first two runs, which included a leadoff homer from Mason Bruesch.

Anthony Durava got the next two batters before walking Tate Beran and serving up a three-run blast to Hallahan, dooming the Lancers (9-8, 2-3) to an insurmountable deficit.

Beran capped the Vikings’ power display with a solo shot in the third.

Bruesch reached on an error with one out in the fourth and, after advancing to third on an errant pickoff throw, scored on a double from Nelson Wendell, who himself came home on cleanup hitter Nick Price’s double.

Warren Furio, Lake Park’s third pitcher, got the first out of the sixth before Geneva scored the three runs necessary to put the 10-run rule into effect.

The last run scored when Hallahan, the seventh batter of the inning, followed Beran’s RBI single in the previous at-bat with one of his own.

“This is definitely a first on the mound,” Hallahan said when asked if he’d had a game like this before. “But at the plate, I just hit the ball. I just keep it simple. It’s the game I’ve been playing since (I was) 6 years old.”

The Lancers got their only run during a two-out rally in the fourth. Josh Kolton walked, advanced on a Tommy Pruyn first-pitch single, then scored on a first-pitch RBI single from pinch hitter Jason Keefe.

The game tied the series at one victory apiece. The rubber match will be played Wednesday in Roselle, the site of the first game.

“That’s the beauty of this game,” said Lake Park coach Dan Colucci. “We don’t have to wait a week and a half for the next game, so they’ve got to reset and come back out tomorrow. We’ve done well at home, so we feel confident coming out and playing good baseball.”

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