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Hake dominates as Ursuline shuts out South Range
By DAN HINER
STRUTHERS
There is only one way to describe the pitching performance of Ursuline’s Joel Hake on Saturday — dominant.
“My guys backed me up and scored a few runs — five runs and seven hits,” Hake said. “They gave me enough runs to get it done. My slider was working really well today, and I lived on the outside corner with my fastball and slider. I brought it in occasionally, and that’s why I was successful today.”
The senior threw a complete-game shutout as Ursuline beat South Range, 5-0. Hake (3-0) showed great command of his pitches, allowing four hits and striking out 15.
“We tried to trigger earlier in the box,” South Range head coach Jim Hanek said. “Get to your trigger position, you could see it early and react from there. Try to be aggressive and try to get fastballs to hit, but down in the count, he was able to command his off-speed. That hard slider he was throwing 2-0 to hitters, that’s kinda tough [because] 2-0 is usually a fastball count and he was able to throw off-speed pitches for strikes in fastball counts.”
Ursuline (11-3) put the first two runs on the board when Drew Potesta hit a two-out two-run single to right-center field, driving in Gianni Quattro and Hake.
“He had two two-out swings for RBIs — he drove three runs in,” Ursuline head coach Sean Durkin said. “He’s been hitting it well all year and that’s why he’s in the middle of our lineup. We hope he comes up in big situations and comes through and that’s exactly what he did today.”
The Irish extended their lead to 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning after Potesta hit a grounder back up the middle for a single. Ursuline’s Alex Schlosser scored from second base. Schlosser reached on a two-base error.
Ursuline’s Zach Patton added two insurance runs after he doubled down the left-field line. Bobby Dulay scored and South Range pitcher Nick Deal cut off the throw from left field in an attempt to throw Patton out at second, but an errant relay by Deal allowed the ball to roll into right center-field as Patton scored.
Hanek said South Range (11-7) played well on defense, and credited Hake on his performance. Hanek said Hake’s pitching took some of the air out of the team offensively.
“For the most part we played solid defense, a couple lapses in the last couple innings,” he said. “I’m proud of our guys defensively. It was a rough day team-wise at the plate. Credit Ursuline’s pitcher, he kept us off-balance today. He really commanded the strike zone and had control of all his pitches.”
Durkin said he thought Ursuline’soffense could have done better. The Irish recorded just four hits and two of their five runs were unearned.
“We’ve actually been hitting the ball pretty well the last four or five games out,” Durkin said. “Today we didn’t. We didn’t really sting it up and down the lineup like we have been, but we did come up with big hits when we had runners in scoring position. With an outing like that, it was enough today.”