Pitching performances have been few and far between for South Elgin senior Logan Romasanta, who is team’s starting catcher.
In Thursday’s Upstate Eight Conference series finale at West Aurora, however, Romasanta took off the gear and took the ball.
Romasanta pitched a complete game in his second start of the season, helping South Elgin to a 4-2 win in the rubber game of the three-game series. The Upper Iowa commit allowed two runs, one earned, on four hits, with eight strikeouts and one walk.
“I wanted this spot,” Romasanta said. “I’m just a hyped-up person, so I wanted to throw. I was just getting into my legs, staying consistent. That was the main thing I had to work on. Everything else was working.”
Romasanta (2-0) was staked to a 4-0 lead going into the bottom of the fourth. Grant Baker had an RBI single in the second.
Small ball led to a three-run top of the fourth. Despite not hitting the ball out of the infield, Griffen Allen, Austin Doty and Patrick Keaty collected RBIs for the Storm (14-3, 12-2).
The only earned run Romasanta allowed was Darin Hartkopp’s homer in the bottom of the fourth. West Aurora (14-6-1, 10-4-1) added an unearned run in the seventh.
“He did a very nice job,” South Elgin coach Jim Kating said. “We needed somebody to step up. He did so. He pitched well, and we needed that.
“That hard part is finding situations where I can throw him because he’s valuable behind the plate too. If he can throw like that, we’re going to be running him out there.”
South Elgin and West Aurora tied for the UEC title last spring. The teams put together an entertaining three-game set this week in the battle for the conference title, with West taking the middle game Wednesday in eight innings.
“It’s a measuring stick of where we’re at, and they played really well,” Kating said. “This is an atmosphere like playoff baseball, and we needed that right now.”
West Aurora coach John Reeves took it as a measuring stick as well.
Chicago Tribune Sports
“The biggest thing is the growth from one portion of the season to another,” Reeves said. “I would say we’re progressing into a much better team than we were a couple weeks ago.”
Two teams playing well made for solid baseball as April winds down.
“It was a good series,” Reeves said. “There was a lot at stake in terms of who will be on top of the leader board. We obviously would have liked it the other way, but they have a very nice team. It was two good teams going at it.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.