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De La Salle edges St. Ignatius in extras

May 4, 2014

By Ryan Quigley
Area Scout

CHICAGO, IL- With the wind blowing in hits were hard to come by on Saturday afternoon at De La Salle as the Meteors walked off with an extra inning victory over the St. Ignatius Wolfpack 4-3.

Junior outfielder Robert Zebrauskas led off the eighth inning with a double, and eventually scored the game winner on a walk-off single to deep left field by junior third basemen Joe Gazzi. 

Both teams struggled to put hits together, but the game was a coming out party of sorts for St. Ignatius sophomore outfielder Dylan Gilbert. Gilbert finished the day 2-for-3 with two line drive singles, an RBI, a walk, run scored, and two stolen bases, but took the loss on the mound in relief.

Cody Sopko took the win on the hill for the Meteors in relief, throwing a scoreless top of the eighth. Ignatius threatened putting two men on with no outs thanks to a single by sophomore first basemen Charlie Norton and a walk. Sopko made a great barehanded play on a sacrifice bunt down the third base line, twirled and threw to cut down the leadoff runner, and keep the possible winning run from advancing. Two groundouts stopped the Wolfpack rally and set the scene for Gazzi’s heroics to end the game.

De La Salle had seven hits on the day spread out throughout the lineup, while Ignatius could only muster four in a game that was marred by walks and errors on both sides. The two teams combined to walk eighteen hitters and commit five errors. Ignatius scored one unearned run in the first, and two unearned in the third thanks to De La Salle errors and three consecutive walks in the third. 

After trailing 3-0 early, the Meteors tied up the ball game in the third thanks to three consecutive walks and a one out, two-RBI single by junior first basemen Jake Haynes.  With the score knotted at three the rest of the way, senior righty Damian Bertucci kept the Wolfpack offense at bay for De La Salle, throwing four scoreless innings of one hit ball with three strikeouts and one walk.

De La Salle improves to 15-7, 9-4 in the Catholic League White, while St. Ignatius dropped to 7-15, 1-8.

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