St. Anthony Strikes Late Against Effingham

May 13, 2017

By Drew Locascio
Illinois Scouting Director

St. Anthony 5, Effingham 2

EFFINGHAM, IL – Effingham and St. Anthony faced off in the third and final game of a three-game set on Friday afternoon. Effingham, winners of the first two games, was looking for the sweep and had a 2-1 lead entering the top of the seventh. St. Anthony (14-8) had other plans however, scoring four runs with two outs eventually knocking off Effingham 5-2.

St. Anthony’s offense was quiet until the top of the seventh inning. The Bulldogs, who trailed 2-1 entering the frame, used a single and two hit by pitches to load the bases with one out. After a failed suicide squeeze, three-hole hitter Drew Gibson was up with two outs. After fouling off a couple of pitches, he got a pitch out over the plate and served it into left-field for what turned out to be the game winning hit. The single plated two runs and gave the Bulldogs a 3-2 lead. Within moments, the following hitter, Greg Utz, lined another two-run single into left field to extend the lead to 5-2.

The Bulldogs relief pitcher, Joe Kabbes came out in the bottom of the seventh and closed things out in impressive fashion. After giving up a leadoff single to Brett Koester, Kabbes proceeded to strike out the next three batters.

St. Anthony jumped out to a 1-0 lead after the top of the first. Lead-off batter, Bryar Jansen, jumped on the very first pitch of the game, an 89 mph fastball and doubled to left-field. Jansen would later score on a wild pitch.

Effingham (21-3) came right back in the bottom of the first two tie the ballgame up at one. Koester, the two-hole hitter, tripled to the right-center field gap and later scored on a Brent Beals RBI groundout. The scoring subsided until the bottom of the fifth when Beals hit a solo homerun to deep left-center field, giving Effingham a 2-1 which held until the seventh.

Effingham started sophomore right-handed pitcher Zach Lee. Lee, currently ranked No. 4 in the Illinois’ 2019 class, was impressive in his 5.2 innings of work. Lee scattered two hits, allowed the one run in the first inning, struck out eight and walked three. At one point, he struck out four of five batters. The 6-foot-4, 185-pound, right-hander attacked hitters with a fastball that ranged anywhere from 85-89 mph, touching 90 twice. To keep hitters off balance he consistently mixed in a slider at 75-79 mph. Lee also, flashed a couple of changeups later in the ballgame.

For more in-depth notes from the game - and all other games that we cover - visit the Illinois Scout Blog later.