The calendar just flipped to April and Frank Consiglio can’t think about the big picture in high school baseball just yet.
There’s plenty of time for Evanston to make up for back-to-back losses to a pair of Chicago Public Schools teams that will likely be a part of the same Illinois High School Association Class 4A sectional tournament complex again this year.
Consiglio’s Wildkits, after being blanked by Whitney Young 3-0 in a five-inning game shortened by snowfall, suffered their second straight defeat Friday at Kerry Wood Field in Chicago, bowing to host Lane Tech by a 9-2 margin.
Not much went right for the visitors on another chilly afternoon as they fell to 3-2 on the young season.
Starting pitcher Jared Lortie was knocked out in the fourth inning after leading 2-1. Reliever Owen Brooks tossed a wild pitch on his first offering – scoring a run – and things didn’t get much better for the sidewinding senior right-hander after that as he surrendered four runs in his final inning of work.
On offense, the Kits mustered just three hits and one earned run.
“I think I charted [only] two hard-hit balls and seven walks today,” said Consiglio. “We didn’t compete very well against the guys we needed to get out [in the top half of the batting order]. The same thing happened to us last night [against Whitney Young]. We have a lot of things to clean up, a lot of things to fix. We didn’t play Evanston baseball.
“Sectional seeds [potential]? That’s too big picture for me to think about right now. It matters more how you’re playing going into the season than what happens this early. Right now, I’m just worried about the little things.”
Evanston’s offense didn’t add up to much for the second game in a row. With the bases loaded in the second inning, Addison Blough rapped a sacrifice fly to left plating Ben Gutowski. And in the third, Eron Vega reached on a dropped fly ball and came around to score on two stolen bases and a subsequent throwing error.
Lane pitchers Carter Dow and Jack Breeden combined to retire the last nine ETHS hitters in a row. Breeden fanned five of the six Wildkits he faced.
Lortie’s wildness caught up with the junior righty after he yielded a triple to Nick Lagges and a wild pitch to hand the hosts a run in the first inning. He issued a four-pitch walk to Lagges to open the fourth inning, threw a wild pitch that sent him to second, and then allowed a ground double down the left field line by Lou Derechin to tie the game.
Two pitches later, Lortie uncorked another wild pitch and Consiglio summoned Brooks from the bullpen. After a wild pitch that plated the go-ahead run, Brooks did manage to survive a hit batsman and his own error on an attempted pickoff and escaped without another run scoring.
But Lane got to the righty for four more runs in the fifth to break the game open, including a 2-run, 2-out double by Jack Tzur.
Evanston resumes action on Monday against Hersey, with the game slated for the Northwestern University field at 4:30 p.m.