All Aboard!!! The Express win the Lakeside Challenge
Good pitching almost always beats good hitting.
Express right-hander Frankie Farry cooled off the hottest hitting team in the Lakeside Challenge tournament Sunday and led the Express to a 9-1 victory over the Illinois Sparks in the championship game.
Farry limited the Sparks --- who averaged 38 runs in four previous tournament games --- to six hits while striking out four and walking one in a distance performance on the mound. The Sparks scored their only run in the seventh inning on a one-out home run by Carter Snyder.
The Express pushed across four runs in the first without hitting a ball out of the infield, then added five more runs in the top of the seventh to claim the tourney title.
In the Express first, the champs scored on infield hits by Michael Wick and Ryan Suwanski, two walks and an error. Sparks starter Mizraim Fuentes tossed three wild pitches that accounted for three of those runs.
Two Sparks errors, plus a triple by Reece Conroyd and a double by Blake Wittkamp, accounted for the Express scoring in the seventh. Leadoff hitter Wick went 3-for-4 for the winners, who also got two hits each from Conroyd and Jason Shaltiel.
The Express advanced with a 2-1 win over the Grayslake Nighthawks in the semifinals. In the other semi, the Sparks eliminated the Oak Lawn Sharks in a wild 14-13 affair in which the winning run crossed on that rarest of baseball plays, a walk-off balk.
The Sparks loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the eighth, and losing pitcher Ryan Thompson wiped his mouth and was called for a balk.
