Baseball: Lincoln-Way East dominates Lockport

LOCKPORT – The Lincoln-Way East baseball team that arrived at Lockport’s Ed Flink Field already had suffered through nine losses in the first half of the season.

After Monday afternoon’s game was over, it was hard to surmise how that happened as the Griffins overwhelmed Lockport 12-2 in five innings.

Using a relentless 13-hit attack and a quietly spectacular pitching performance from Ethan Godlewski, the Griffins (11-9) started strong and finished stronger.

Griffins leadoff hitter MJ Schley was hit by a pitch to start the game, and Matt Hudik reached on a beautifully placed bunt single. Clean-up hitter Justyn Hart then stepped in and did exactly what that role implies as he walloped a three-run homer that easily cleared the left-center field fence.

Godlewski went to the mound with a bit of a cushion but nearly gave it right back. Adam Kozak led off the game for Lockport with an infield hit before Colton Benaitis swatted a home run of his own to cut the margin to 3-2.

But instead of sulking, Godlewski locked in and went to work.

He retired the next three batters in order and held Lockport (12-7-1) to just three batters in the second, third and fourth innings, wiping away a third-inning single by Bryce Flood on a double play ball and allowing no other batters to reach until Reese Wellsandt singled in the fifth.

He too was retired on a fielder’s choice ground ball from Joey DalPonte, who would reach second base but go no further after Godlewski induced the final two outs of the game to finish with a complete game. He allowed just four hits and issued no walks.

“I knew what I had to do, and I knew they were going to come out firing right away,” Godlewski said. “I just had to stop it and put a plug on it. We put up runs and they all backed me up.”

Lincoln-Way East coach John McCarthy wasn’t at all surprised with the performance from his pitcher.

“We took on the personality of our starting pitcher today,” McCarthy said. “Ethan came out ready to go and battled and was in the strike zone, and that just set the tone for the entire team.”

There definitely was a positive vibe coming from Lincoln-Way East as it tacked on two more runs in the second inning on a sacrifice fly from Schley and an RBI single from Tyler Bell and then added another in the third on a RBI single from Zach Beecham to push the lead 6-2.

But the finishing move came in the East half of the fourth inning as Hart demolished another pitch that landed almost in the same place as the first one for his second homer of the game. Danny Mackey connected for an RBI double, Beecham knocked in another with single, and James Rea chased home two more to stretch Lincoln-Way East’s lead to 12-2.

“It’s been a long time. It probably was T-ball,” Hart said when asked the last time he hit two home runs in a game. “It was just see ball, hit ball. I just had a steady approach. I didn’t expect the day to go how it went, but it was a great day for me though.”

After slipping to 6-8 just a little more than a week ago, Lincoln-Way East now has won five of its past six games. Have the Griffins found their groove? McCarthy’s not sure, but he knows the key to making the upswing continue to move in the right direction.

“Every day is a new day, but we feel like we just have to continue our growth in all facets of the game, it is not only the hitting and the pitching but our base running and our defense,” McCarthy said. “I think our best days are ahead of us, and obviously today was a good day for us, but its baseball and every day its something different. We are just going to keep trying to get better. That’s the key.”