Grinder mentality suits Lockport in win over Lincoln-Way East

FRANKFORT – Lockport knew it had to take a grinder approach to dealing with its opponent Wednesday afternoon.

Fortunately, that’s just fine with Porters.

“I think Lockport baseball always thrives on a challenge,” Lockport coach Scott Malinowski said. “That goes way back before our time here, just a competitiveness and a blue collar attitude.”

It suited the Porters as they dealt with Lincoln-Way East, most notably Griffins standout starter Jack Bauer, as Lockport scratched and clawed its way to a 4-1 SouthWest Suburban Conference victory.

It didn’t look like it was going to be Lockport’s day against Bauer as the Porters (19-9, 8-5 SWSC) managed to scratch out only an infield single in the first two innings against the Virginia commit and potential high draft pick in the July MLB draft.

But Lockport stuck to its plan and managed to extend some at-bats in the early going against the flame-throwing left-hander.

That persistence paid off in the third inning. Lockport coaxed three consecutive walks out of Bauer, and although the first of the three free passes led to a caught stealing, Bryce Flood reloaded the bases after he was plunked by a Bauer pitch.

Bauer settled in and collected a strikeout for the second out of the inning, but Drew Satunas wouldn’t let Bauer get out of the frame unscathed, coaxing a bases-loaded walk out of Bauer to plate the game’s first run.

“My approach for attacking him was to get my foot down, don’t think too much,” Satunas said. “Let him come to me, let him supply the power and don’t get too big.”

Bauer induced a popout to get out of the inning, but the heavy volume of pitches thrown in the third inning ended his day early.

Lincoln-Way East (21-8, 10-3) tied the score with a solo home run from Danny Mackey, but the Griffins weren’t having much luck against Lockport’s pitching staff that attacked the Griffins with a piecemeal attack.

Martin Kinnane pitched four-plus innings of scoreless baseball before handing off the reins to the collective bullpen efforts of Jeffrey Bruning, Nate Gorecki and Austin Winge.

Lincoln-Way East had no innings where it sent more than four batters to the plate and finished with only four hits in the game.

Lockport still had to find a way to break the tie and did so in the sixth inning. Caden Russell started off the rally by getting hit by a pitch and came all the way around on a double by Satunas. Satunas later scored on a balk.

“That was a good one, that was a grinder at-bat, in my opinion,” Satunas said. “I went down 0-2 on two bunts, and then I battled through in a two-strike approach. It helped to get that curveball, and I was able to poke it out there to the outfield and get that double to help the team.”

Lockport tacked on another run in the seventh on an RBI single from Russell. Winge tossed a spotless seventh inning and capped the Lockport win with two strikeouts.

“There were some things we didn’t do well, like the bunt game, but again, we did just enough other things,” Malinowski said. “Our defense was the story of the ballgame, in my opinion. The amount of great defensive plays that we made was the difference.”