CornBelters offense, pitching dominate Wild Things

Posted on May 23, 2015

Mike Schweiss struck out a career-high 14 hitters in Friday’s 12-1 rout of Washington. (Photo by Rick Ulreich)

By Greg Halbleib

NORMAL – The Normal CornBelters, presented by Illinois Corn Farmers, exploded on offense and rode a strong pitching performance in a 12-1 rout of the Washington Wild Things on Friday night at the Corn Crib.

The Wild Things broke open the scoring in the second inning when Sam Mende led off with a single, was balked to second and scored on a double to the left center gap by Maxx Garrett.

The Belters answered in their third inning and took a 5-1 lead when Cameron Monger roped a one-out single to left, stole second and scored on a base hit to center by Mark Micowski. Pat McKenna tripled to the left center field fence to score Micowski, then came home on a single by Sam Judah. Aaron Dudley advanced Judah to second with a base hit followed by an RBI double to the left field wall by Richard Lucas. The Belters completed the big inning when Dudley scored from third on an error on a ground ball to shortstop from Ozney Guillen.

The CornBelters’ lead extended to 9-1 in the fourth inning when McKenna drilled a grand slam homer onto the left field berm to increase his RBI total for the night to five. Mark Micowski homered to lead off the sixth, and two more runs crossed the plate in the seventh on a bases-loaded walk to McKenna for his sixth RBI of the evening and a wild pitch.

All nine CornBelters in the lineup collected at least one hit in the largest offensive performance of the young season (12 runs, 18 hits).

Mike Schweiss (1-1) shone in his seven-inning performance, giving up the lone run on five hits with one walk and 14 strikeouts. Victor Beriguete struck out four more hitters in the final two innings for a total of 18 Washington strikeouts. Wild Things starter Ryan Bores (0-1) took the loss.

The series continues on State Farm Saturday with a 6:35 p.m. first pitch at the Corn Crib in a battle of left-handed pitchers, Kevin Brahney (1-0, 0.00 ERA) for Normal and Kyle Helisek (1-0, 0.00) for Washington. The game can be heard on WEZC-FM 95.9, WJBC.com and www.normalbaseball.com beginning at 6:20.

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