By: Kasey Salamie Southland Vikings contributor.
Flossmoor— The Southland Vikings (9-9) took on the Will County CrackerJacks (11-8) on Wednesday night.
The ‘Jacks sent their ace to the mound, Steve Taylor. Taylor (6-0) has been magnificent this season in the Midwest Collegiate League. He entered the game undefeated with a 0.60 ERA. He has faced the Vikings three times and has beaten them in all three starts.
In his start tonight he was dominant. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning until it was broken up on a line drive single by James Dawson. Taylor was mixing his pitches well. When he got behind the count he would trust his off-speed pitches. Taylor has allowed just three earned runs in 43 innings of work this season. The Vikings did load the bases on him in the eighth but he would wiggle his way out of that jam. Taylor threw a complete game shutout to go along with eleven strikeouts.
Viking’s manager Chris Cunningham needed his starter Dave Nelson to match Taylor. Nelson (1-1) was close to out dueling him. Nelson allowed three runs in the first two innings (only one earned run) and those were the only runs he allowed. Nelson pitched a complete game allowing only one earned run. This start lowered his ERA down to 1.50 for the season.
“Tonight I did not have my best stuff but I battled through it,” Nelson said. Nelson continued, “My fastball felt really good tonight and it got me a lot of ground ball outs. Ultimately, they had some bloop hits at the times they needed them the most.”
The ‘Jacks scored two unearned runs in the first inning by capitalizing on error by the Vikings. They would score once in the third on a RBI groundout by Steve Kedroski.
Despite the tough loss for the Vikings there were some defensive gems in the game. Vikings right fielder Sean Dwyer made a nice diving play. Elliot Armstrong made two spectacular defensive plays. In the fourth inning he gunned out a runner at home with a frozen rope throw from center field. Then in the seventh inning Armstrong made a sensational play by making a full-extension diving play to rob the CrackerJack hitter of a RBI hit.
“Everything I do is for the team,” Armstrong said. Armstrong continued, “I read the ball of the bat and just reacted,” said Armstrong.
The 3-0 loss made the Vikings 2-4 against the CrackerJacks for the season. They will play them again tomorrow night at 7:00 PM at Homewood-Flossmoor High School.
Box score: http://vikings.bbstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=47731