In a Suburban South Conference slugfest, four balls flew beyond the fence including a sixth inning grand slam off of Zack Lazenby’s bat to give the Colts a 9-5 victory over the rival Parkway West Longhorns.
Lazenby said that being aggressive at the plate paid off, hitting both a game tying RBI double in the second inning and a two run home run in the fourth on first pitch fastballs before sending the game winning grand slam out of the park on the second pitch of the at bat.
“As the eighth hitter I know that they weren’t going to throw me a lot of curve balls. I like to jump on it early,” Lazenby said.
In the score book, the junior takes credit for seven RBIs, but according to Lazenby, it was a team effort.
“I thought that our bats were superior. All of my RBIs today don’t happen if the guys in front of me aren’t on base,” Lazenby said. “I should give them credit. It was a good win for us.”
Senior, Jack Schneider put the Colts on the board in the second inning with a solo shot to left center. Schneider was surprised to see the ball fly past the fence.
“I saw it coming inside and I just tried to jump on it. I knew that he threw pretty hard so if I turned on it would go pretty far,” Schneider said. “I started running to first, thinking it was going to be a double or something and I got to jog the rest of the way.”
He added that a recent adjustment in his swing is improving his vision at the plate.
“I’ve been loading back earlier so that I can watch the pitch all the way in and its really helping me,” Schneider said.
In the third inning, Parkway West answered with three runs on Adam Jelovic’s home run.
West added one run in both the fourth and fifth before Lazenby’s grand slam.
Matthew Bernstein closed out the game for Parkway Central after Matt Hresko’s start on the mound.
“I just went in wanting to throw strikes. It wasn’t the most comfortable day out there but I was able to get them to ground out,” Bernstein said. “It was nice to see the team working the whole game.”
The Colts travel to Seckman to take on the Jaguars tomorrow afternoon with the first pitch scheduled for 4:15.
