Plainfield North’s Max Barriball, back after an elbow injury, throws 10-strikeout gem to beat Oswego

OSWEGO – Max Barriball endured a rocky first inning Thursday, but it didn’t bother him.

He’s just happy to be back on the mound.

The Plainfield North senior left-hander started as a sophomore, but partially tore the ligament in his elbow the second start of last spring. Barriball didn’t pitch again, was the Tigers’ designated hitter all season and had reconstructive surgery on his elbow in June.

“It feels awesome to be back my senior year – if anything I feel stronger," Barriball said. “Offseason worked hard, put muscle on. All my pitches were moving, arm felt strong. To come back from the injury, it’s an incredible feeling.”

Barriball was feeling even more incredible after the way he threw Thursday.

He skated out of a 30-pitch first inning, then struck out 10 in taking a no-hitter into the fifth, throwing five shutout innings.

Visiting Plainfield North scored three runs in the first and held on to beat Oswego 3-2, taking the rubber game of the first Southwest Prairie West series.

Barriball walked three and hit one batter, leaving after a strong 92-pitch outing. It was a welcome sight for Plainfield North coach John Darlington, but hardly a surprising one.

“As a sophomore he was like 4-1, beat Huntley that was ranked No. 2 in the state, threw a two-hitter against a team with like seven D1 kids,” Darlington said. “We knew he was good. It’s working his way back in. Good to see him pitch well. I know he was excited.”

Perhaps a little too excited, as Barriball walked the first batter on eight pitches after Plainfield North (13-5, 2-1) spotted him a 3-0 lead. Barriball walked a second batter, and an error extended the inning, but he got a strikeout looking on his 30th pitch of the inning.

And then he was off and running, striking out the side in the second and allowing just three baserunners the rest of his outing.

“At the beginning I wasn’t really extending, I wasn’t feeling all my pitches in the right zone, kind of flying open, that’s why I was missing,” Barriball said. “After that I reset, finished through my body and threw strikes.

“My fastball and changeup are my two best pitches, fastball with a little arm side run and changeup 8-10 miles per hour slower, a little dip and drive. It looks the same to the batter out of the hand, two different shapes, got them off balance.”

Oswego (16-3, 1-2) finally touched Barriball for a hit with one out in the fifth with Dylan King’s hot smash off the third baseman. But Barriball struck out the next batter, his last.

“The first inning he was rushing himself to the plate so much he just had to slow it down,” Darlington said. “He was probably excited to throw, it was a big game. He settled into a rhythm and stayed back.”

Plainfield North, which snapped Oswego’s 10-game winning streak with a 12-2 win Tuesday, jumped out early.

Johnny Andretich reached on an error to start the game and after a Ryan O’Connor single and Gavin Persson walk, Brendan Henderson squirted a two-run single through the infield.

A third run scored on a sacrifice fly, but Oswego starter Aiden Jaquez kept it there.

Jaquez worked into the seventh, allowing just three hits while striking out six.

“He gave us a chance,” Oswego coach Joe Giarrante said. “He’s a gutsy kid, doesn’t like to lose.”

Oswego hasn’t done much losing this season, and its bats haven’t been quieted like they have the last few days. Oswego had averaged just over nine runs its first 16 games, but scored a total of eight in the three-game series.

The Panthers, whose only scoring came on Gabriel Herrera’s two-run single in the sixth, were a little short-handed.

Missouri recruit Kam Jenkins tweaked an arm sliding into first earlier in the series and didn’t play Thursday. Leadoff hitter Bryson Norwood has been out two weeks with a hamstring injury.

“But that’s not an excuse where we’re at,” Giarrante said. “Plainfield North has decent arms. We haven’t seen those types of arms.

“We just have to find a little more offense and it will come. Hopefully, we can start generating some more from the bottom of our lineup. That’s when we are at our most dangerous.”

Andretich, Plainfield North’s third pitcher, closed it out with a perfect seventh, a nice change for the Tigers.

“Of our five losses, three of them we lost in the sixth or seventh having the lead. We imploded,” Darlington said. “We have a lot of seniors that didn’t play last year and juniors didn’t play at all. We have to get into a rhythm.”