Prep baseball: Cody DelFavero, Morris top Sycamore in opener of key Interstate 8 series

SYCAMORE – Sycamore starter Matt Rosado and Morris starter Cody DelFavero were locked in a pitchers duel Wednesday in the opener of their Interstate 8 Conference series.

But Morris got two runs off of the Sycamore ace in the seventh inning to tie the game at 2 and then got three runs off of the Sycamore bullpen in the eighth for a 5-2 win to move into sole possession of first place in the I-8 conference.

“We knew we needed to score runs,” DelFavero said. “So we finally started swinging the bat at pitches we needed to swing the bat at.”

Morris (19-3 overall, 9-1 conference) managed one hit through the first six innings off of Rosado and trailed 2-0 but started the seventh with a single by Jack Wheeler and a DelFavero double. Griffin Zweeres scored Wheeler on a sacrifice fly, then a Merek Klicker sac fly scored DelFavero.

An RBI single by Teague Hallahan in the bottom of the inning, his second of the game, forced extra innings. But DelFavero hit a two-run single in the top of the eighth to put Morris ahead for good.

“The way he threw the ball on the bump today, I don’t think anybody deserves those at-bats in those moments and the results more than him,” Morris coach Todd Kein said. “It’s a cliche in coaching, but he’s literally a kid that would run through a brick wall for you. The kid is just a gritty, good old-fashioned ball player and we love him for it.”

DelFavero allowed two runs, one earned, and five hits while striking out eight and walking one.

The loss was the third in nine days for Sycamore (16-3, 8-2), each to an opposing team’s ace. The Spartans lost 7-0 to Kaneland and Jackson Kottmeyer last week before rebounding to take the series from the Knights. On Saturday, they lost 10-0 to DeKalb and ace Jackson Kees.

“I think at times our lineup thinks we’re just going to go out and hit home runs and hit doubles all day long,” Sycamore coach Jason Cavanaugh said. “That’s not the case against good pitchers. All three of the pitchers we faced are going to play some level of college baseball. And we have a lot of college players, too, but we all know good pitching dominates good hitting.

“When you face a guy like we’re facing today, where he’s not going to walk anybody, he didn’t go to many three-ball counts, so he’s going to come out throwing strikes. He’d throw any pitch in any count. And that makes it tough to sit on a fastball and think you are going to hit home runs and doubles all day.”

Rosado started the eighth against Morris reliever Wheeler, reaching on an error then Kyle Prebil – who pitched the top of the eighth in relief of Rosado and took the loss – singled him to second.

But Wheeler struck out the next two batters, and Morris took Game 1 of the series.

“We did not start how we wanted to start at all,” DelFavero said. “Offensively, we finally got it going in the last innings there, and that’s what helped us, I think.”

Sycamore outhit Morris 6-5 in the game. Prebil, Hallahan and DelFavero had two hits each.

Rosado struck out five and allowed three hits and no walks. He retired the first 10 Morris batters, and Del Favero retired the first 11 Spartans.

Kein said it was the type of game neither starting pitcher deserved to lose.

“Cody has given us stellar performance after stellar performance this season,” Kein said. “We expect a lot from him, and he expects a lot from himself. He did his job today. Before we get on the bus, if you tell me Sycamore is only going to put up one run on him, I like our chances.”

The series is scheduled to conclude at Morris with a doubleheader starting at 3 p.m. Thursday.

“We’re not going to rest on our laurels here for too long,” Kein said. “Jason will have his guys ready to go. We’ve been coaching against each other for way too long to take anything for granted. We have to have a short memory and get back at it [Thursday]. We have a long day of baseball at our place.”