Bill Milano wasn’t ready to declare the Maine South baseball team’s offensive struggles solved, but the veteran coach said Saturday’s game was encouraging.
The Hawks rallied for a 7-4 win over a Prospect club that came into the game 10-1 and ranked 18th in Prep Baseball Report’s state rankings. Down 4-3, Maine South scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth and two more in the sixth. It was the second most runs the Hawks have scored in a game this year.
“We were better [Saturday],” Milano said. “But we are not where we need to be.”
After striking out 10 times and losing to Notre Dame 4-3 on Tuesday, the Hawks worked all week on situational hitting and batting with two strikes. Maine South, which was averaging five runs through six games, produced in both areas Saturday.
The Hawks (5-2) scored their first run in the first inning on two errors and two groundouts. In the late innings, they scored four runs on two-strike pitches. Senior center fielder Hank Schau’s two-out, two-strike single in the fifth scored the tying and go-ahead runs.
“With two strikes, I usually widen my stance, choke up and try to hit it the other way,” Schau said. “But on that pitch, I saw a low curveball that I thought I could make contact with, and I pulled it.”
Second baseman Stephen Sakowicz and third baseman David Fleita had run-scoring hits with two strikes in the sixth inning. The juniors also helped the Hawks manufacture a run in the first. Fleita’s groundout to the second baseman moved Sakowicz to third. Senior catcher Zach Parker then brought Sakowicz home with his groundout to the shortstop.
Maine South assistant coach Mark Ori spearheaded the effort to improve the offense this week. The 2002 Maine South graduate was a two-time all-state player in high school and then starred at Northwestern. He was a 14th-round draft pick by the Houston Astros in 2005 and spent seven seasons as a professional, climbing as high as Double-A, before retiring in 2011.
In his second season with the varsity team and third as a coach in the program, Ori primarily functions as Maine South’s hitting instructor.
“I don’t like to force guys to change things up, but we had to change our approach with two strikes,” Ori said.
Ori said a wider stance and choking up on the bat promotes a simpler swing. He said he mandated that approach Saturday for any player with two strikes.
“I don’t want to put any pressure on them, but I also don’t want them over-swinging with two strikes,” Ori said. “I didn’t want them trying to do too much. The guys did a much better job [Saturday].”
Maine South still had its troubles against Prospect. The Hawks struck out eight times, including three times with the bases loaded in the fourth inning.
But the good outweighed the bad, Milano said.
“That first inning was good baseball, us moving those runners around like that and scoring one run,” he said. “I will take that for seven innings. We do that, and we probably win a lot of games.”
Schau, who went 2-for-2 with three RBIs and earned the game ball, said the extra effort in the batting cages during the week paid off Saturday and could serve as a springboard for the rest of the season.
“It was good to see,” he said. “But we aren’t there yet.”
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