OPRF Baseball Lacks Right Approach

As the Oak Park-River Forest baseball team seeks to improve its approach at the plate, all the Huskies had to do was look across the field Thursday to see how it’s done.

An experienced Leyden club parlayed its discipline into offense throughout its lineup. The undefeated Eagles scored early and often on the way to beating the Huskies 10-4 in a West Suburban Conference crossover game in Oak Park.    

Leyden (12-0) scored twice in the top of the first inning, once in the second and three times in the fourth to take a 6-0 lead.

The Eagles finished with 12 hits against three OPRF pitchers.

“We’ve been hitting all year,” Leyden coach Gary Wolf said. “We have 14 seniors on the team and start nine of them. They’ve heard over and over again, ‘Hit your pitch. Don’t hit the pitcher’s pitch.’ We’ve been extremely disciplined and I think you saw that today.”

Conversely, OPRF (9-5) recorded nine hits, but left 10 runners on base including eight in scoring position. 

The Huskies struck out nine times. Four ended innings.

“We had a bad approach at the plate,” OPRF coach Chris Ledbetter said. “We’ve seen that in some games this year. If you look at one key stat, seven of our nine strikeouts came with runners in scoring position. When they had runners in scoring position with two strikes, they’re getting the ball in play.”

Ledbetter noted how a couple flair hits by Leyden resulted in runs.

“That’s a good approach,” he said. “They’re trying to stay on the ball and just get it in play. Our approach is different. We’re pulling off the ball right now, so we’ve got to change the approach. We’ve got to find a way to put the ball in play.”

“Our two-strike approach does need to get better,” said Huskies first baseman Nick Kowalczuk, who went 2 for 3 with a walk, double and RBI. “We’ve got to watch for a fastball and react to the curveball. A lot of guys are thinking, ‘Here comes a curveball,’ and it’s strike three on a fastball.”

OPRF scored twice in the fourth to cut its deficit to 6-2. Alec Jeffries singled and Kowalczuk doubled to start the inning. Jeffries eventually scored on a wild pitch and Kowalczuk scored on Ryan Kurtzer’s sacrifice fly to deep center.

But Leyden answered with a pair of runs in fifth on Carlos Olavarria’s 2-run single to make it 8-2.

Olavarria capped a big game with a two-run homer in the seventh. It was his first home run and 13th for the team. Olavarria finished 3 for 4 with a walk, two runs and four RBI.

“We know he can hit,” Wolf said of Olavarria. “He was batting sixth. Hopefully this was a breakout day for him. He hasn’t been hitting very well, but he’s a three-year varsity starter. I think he’s one of the best shortstops in the area. You saw what he could do. When he’s hitting, good things are going to happen for us.”

Olavarria even pitched the final two innings to earn the save. Starting pitcher Angel Sanchez earned the victory to improve to 3-0. He allowed three runs in four-plus innings.

Zach Weigel collected two hits and Matt McCormack had an RBI double for the Huskies.

“We have so much respect for this program,” Wolf said. “Even as a crossover, it’s always a nice win for us. We go into a sectional and they see that you beat Oak Park, it means an awful lot to other teams.”