JANESVILLE — Falling behind early against a pitcher who previously tossed a no-hitter against a team could make for an easy excuse to close up shop for the night and start thinking about the next game.
Janesville Craig resisted that temptation Wednesday night against Verona and Wildcats ace Jack DeTienne.
The Cougars ultimately lost 6-4 at Veterans Field at Riverside Park, but after trailing 5-0 through two innings, they collected nine singles off DeTienne, a Division I baseball recruit who draws scouting attention from major league clubs wherever he pitches. Those hits helped the Cougars close to within 5-4 through six.
“To all of a sudden be facing a 5-0 deficit in the second inning against that guy is tough, but these guys didn’t give up, they continued to battle, competed,” Craig coach Josh Shere said. “Our at-bats against him this time around were way better.”
The offensive approach had to be better for the Cougars if they were going to challenge DeTienne and the Wildcats because he was staked to a 4-0 lead before Craig’s first batter even stepped to the plate.
Craig starter Michael Zink walked Verona’s leadoff hitter on four pitches, and two batters later, Brady Patten doubled to put runners at second and third.
Nick Novinska then pounded a ball into the gap in right field that hopped to the fence for a two-run triple. He scored on a sacrifice fly. Trey Grignon hit a two-out double next and reached third on a Craig error. When Grady Miller stole second base, the throw down from the catcher hit Miller in the back, giving Grignon time to score his team’s fourth run of the inning.
Verona added a fifth run in the top of the second off Blake Bowditch, who replaced Zink. Craig got out of the second with Charlie Claas’ diving snare of a line drive headed up the middle that would’ve scored another run had it gone through.
From there, Bowditch kept the Wildcats off the board in the third, fourth and fifth.
“Anytime a lefty can come in and throw strikes, it’s just a little bit different, a little bit funky (for hitters), and he just competed up there and did really well and got ahead a lot of the time,” Shere said of Bowditch.
During that stretch of innings, the Cougars bats finally blemished DeTienne’s hit column for the first time this season.
Ben Schaffner hit a one-out single up the middle, and Paul Platts followed with a line drive single to center.
Those two moved to second and third on a fielder’s choice, and Schaffner scored on a wild pitch. With Platts moving up to third, Claas hit a chopper on the infield and beat out a throw to first for an RBI infield single to make it 5-2 Verona.
The Cougars scored another pair of runs in the sixth to pull within 5-4, and they made a big defensive play in the top half of the inning to make it happen.
Verona loaded the bases with a single, an error and a walk against Craig’s third pitcher of the night, Finn Dillon.
The Cougars infield came in to be in better position to throw home on a grounder, and that’s exactly what Dillon got.
Alex Rech hit it sharply at Schaffner at second, who threw home to force the out there. Catcher Ryan Lemm pump faked a throw to first and pivoted toward third base, where he saw Grady Miller take too big of a turn.
Lemm threw to third behind Miller, who was now in a rundown. Craig tagged him out after a couple of throws for a double play, and Dillon got Garrison Codde to pop out to end the threat.
“We work on that kind of stuff at practice,” Shere said. “A lot of times, guys are rounding third hard not expecting it (the throw), and it worked. It was a total defensive momentum play, and we took it into the next (half) inning. ... It was awesome to see.”
In the bottom of the sixth, Tony Greco started things with a single. Two batters later, Drayton Lou singled to put two runners on, then Dillon and Tyler Horkan hit back-to-back RBI singles, making it 5-4. DeTienne faced one more batter and recorded an out on a fielder’s choice.
Braden Rozga pitched next for Verona, and he struck out Platts with three offspeed pitches to end the sixth. His style was a major contrast to DeTienne’s, and Craig’s batters didn’t have time to adjust.
The Wildcats grabbed another run in the top of the seventh with back-to-back doubles by Patten and Novinska, and the Cougars went down in order to Rozga in the bottom half.
Despite losing, Shere seemed satisfied with the way his Cougars dealt with the adversity the Wildcats dished out.
“To get nine hits off of Jack and to compete as well as we did — we were down 5-0 ... that says a lot about this group of kids,” he said. “We need to use this momentum to keep going forward. ... We are now battling for sectional seeding and getting better so when we get to the end of May, we’re playing our best baseball. I’m confident that these guys are gonna keep getting better.”
The Cougars are scheduled to host Sun Prairie West at 5 p.m. Thursday pending rain in the forecast. Their next scheduled game after that is the first of two city rivalry matchups with Janesville Parker next week, the first of which will be at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
VERONA 6, JANESVILLE CRAIG 4
Verona 410 000 1 — 6 10 1
Craig 002 002 0 — 4 9 3
Leading hitters — Patten (V) 2x4, Novinska (V) 3x4, Grignon (V) 3x3, Dillon (JC) 2x3. 2B — Patten (V) 2, Grignon (V), DeTienne (V), Novinska (V). 3B — Novinska (V).
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-k) — V: DeTienne W, 5 2/3-9-4-4-1-6; Rozga S, 1 1/3-0-0-0-0-3. JC: Zink L, 1-3-4-3-1-1; Bowditch 4-4-1-1-1-2; Dillon 2-3-1-1-1-2.
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