Errors Sink Glenbard West Baseball

It was one of those days for the Glenbard West baseball team.

The Hilltoppers committed five errors during a 14-4 loss in five innings to host Oak Park-River Forest in the West Suburban Conference Silver Division on Wednesday.

“We’re hot and cold,” Glenbard West coach Brian Wojtun said. “When we play good defense we’re able to keep ourselves in games. When we don’t we’re not (in games), as with most teams.

“Today we just didn’t catch the ball and throw the ball very well. Our kids work hard at it, but we’re not going to make all the plays all the time. We’ve just got to keep working through it, that’s all.”

The game was close early. OPRF (15-8, 9-6) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning when Nick Kowalczuk led off with a misplayed double, took third on a ground out and scored on a Frank Picchiotti sacrifice fly that was dropped.

The contest officially turned ugly for Glenbard West (9-14, 5-7) in the third. The Huskies scored seven runs on four hits aided by help from the visitors in the form of two errors, two walks and a hit batter.

“We started hitting and they started falling apart,” said Kowalczuk, went two for three, knocked in two runs and scored three.

After sending 12 batters to the plate in the third, OPRF sent 10 to the dish in the fourth, scoring six more times to make it 14-0. Glenbard West made two more errors in the inning before Eric Cybulski and P.J. Brennan belted back-to-back homers for the Huskies.

“It’s tough to win ballgames when you’re making errors,” Hilltoppers senior Ben Krusen said.

Glenbard West scored four runs in the fifth. Mark Terwilliger led off the inning with a double and Myles Purdom followed with a single. Then Ryan Kavanaugh delivered an RBI double and Krusen cracked a 2-run double. Krusen later scored on Tyler Curtis’ ground out.

“It’s nice to come back and not end the game flat, and end on a good note,” Krusen said.

That didn’t surprise Wojtun.

“This group always fights,” he said. “They have from day one. They’re going to continue to fight.”

Brennan went the distance en route to improving to 2-2. Curtis pitched three innings and took the loss to fall to 1-2.

Curtis continues to work his way back into a groove after a shoulder injury sidelined him for the first month of the season.

“Tyler pitched well,” Wojtun said. “The score does not indicate the way he pitched at all. His best days are still to come.”

The challenge for the Hilltoppers is to shore up their defense.

“We’ve just got to make the plays,” Wojtun said. “Unfortunately we didn’t. We’ve got to figure out a way to do that. The kids are trying. I don’t blame them for that. They always work hard. They try to get better. Today’s one of those days we took a step backwards, but hopefully on Friday we’ll take a step forward.”