Baseball: Waubonsie Valley’s Robert Hwang keeps Yorkville hitters in check in regular season finale

AURORA – Robert Hwang beat both Glenbard East and Naperville North in the rain in the last two weeks.

Apparently the sun suits him just fine as well.

Hwang, Waubonsie Valley’s junior right-hander, dazzled on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. He came an out away from throwing a complete game, and struck out five while scattering five hits and three walks, as the Warriors beat visiting Yorkville 4-1 in the final playoff tune-up for both teams before regionals.

“Almost everything was working today,” Hwang said. “It was just a good day. Some days you only have one or two pitches working and you can’t do too much. But I had a good number of pitches working. They’re very good hitters, and they had some solid contact. It was a good day.”

Yorkville (14-13-1) scored the game’s first run in the top of the third, as Max Pesola singled and came around to score on Kyle Mack’s ground out.

Hwang kept the Foxes at bay beyond that, retiring nine straight batters after Gavin Dobbels’ leadoff single in the fourth. Hwang was finally lifted after 104 pitches, when Yorkville loaded the bases with two outs and a Ryan Shimp single in the seventh.

Waubonsie coach Bryan Acevedo said Hwang has been throwing more lately for a Warriors’ team that’s had a lot of moving parts with injuries.

“When he’s started for us, he’s been able to throw all three pitches for strikes. He can mix speeds and keep guys off balance,” Acevedo said. “They have some good bats in that lineup and today he did a good job keeping them off of it.”

While Waubonsie (15-12) rode the right arm of Hwang Tuesday, five Yorkville pitchers got work in three days before the regional opener with Oswego East.

Michael Hilker started and went an inning, and was followed by Brody Ferko, Ryan Buck, Connor Corrigan and Simon Skroch. Waubonsie scratched across three runs in the fourth inning for a 3-1 lead, MJ Liyeos singling in the tying and go-ahead runs, but aside from that Yorkville pitchers held the Warriors to one unearned run.

“We wanted to make sure that key guys that would pitch in a regional got one last look at a live batter just to see how things worked well,” Yorkville assistant coach Nick Leonard said. “We came away feeling very confident with our pitching going forward.”

Yorkville’s pitchers got a boost from behind the plate, as catcher Luke Hanson threw out three runners trying to steal bases.

“If people don’t know about Luke Hanson, they’re going to find out,” Leonard said. “He’s a weapon. He does a great job slowing down team’s base running. He’s one of the best in the state at doing that.”

Cole Yearsley singled and reached base twice for Yorkville, whose bats were uncharacteristically quiet. The Foxes have averaged close to seven runs per game this season, and had scored five or more runs in winning three of their previous four games coming into Tuesday.

“We have a bunch of seniors that have bought in – they’ve been the driving force to our offense,” Leonard said. “We didn’t square balls today but the approach was there, they did a nice job being aggressive. It’s something to work on going into Friday. We have all the confidence.”

Next up is Oswego East, who took two out of three with Yorkville during the Southwest Prairie Conference season. Should the Foxes win that game, they’d likely get Plainfield North, a team they just took two out of three from.

“Our conference has been a bear, where any team can beat anybody,” Leonard said. “Whoever is going to be the hot team that day can come out on top. We’re hoping it’s us. Our kids are loose and are excited for it. Our underclassmen want to send the seniors off on a good note.”