First homer for Johnson energizes Raiders, who escape with wild 12-10 victory at Pittsfield

PITTSFIELD, Ill. — Eli Johnson could not contain his excitement.

The Quincy Notre Dame freshman is a fiery competitor, but after hitting his first career home run on Wednesday, he smacked Raiders coach Rich Polak’s hand rounding third base.

Polak felt the effects of Johnson’s emotions running high.

“I think he almost broke my hand,” he said.

Polak was just fine with it, though.

“I’m glad for him,” he said. “That’s the first of many for that kid.”

Johnson’s two-run blast in the top of the third inning gave the Raiders a 10-1 lead, and while things got more interesting than the Raiders would have liked, they did hang on for a 12-10 victory over Pittsfield in a high school baseball game.

“I finally got one,” Johnson said. “It felt really good to get the first one out of the way. I’ve hopefully got many more to come.”

QND junior starting catcher Oliver Triplett knew how much that long ball meant to Johnson.

“He’s been wishing for it all the time in practice,” Triplett said. “It’s all he talks about during batting practice. Every time he hits a home run, he’s like, ‘Man, I wish I could just get one in the game.’ For him to do that today and be so happy about it, that was great.”

The nine-run lead that Johnson’s home run gave the Raiders did not turn out to be as insurmountable as it seemed at the time.

The Saukees immediately answered with five runs in the bottom of the third and got the potential go-ahead run to the plate in the sixth, but Rowan Stegeman induced a Luke Saxe popout to end the inning. Triplett relieved Stegeman in the seventh and retired the Saukees in order, the only 1-2-3 inning either team had in the game.

“I talked to (Triplett) in the sixth inning,” Polak said. “I told him, ‘You have to be great.’ He had just caught all game. I hate doing that, but we were running low on pitching, and he came in and did a great job for us.”

Triplett said he felt fatigue from catching the previous six innings, but he had plenty of bullets left in his right arm to lock down the save.

“The legs hurt a little bit, but the arm’s already really loose,” Triplett said. “The ball was coming out really firm. I felt really confident.”

After the Saukees chipped away to make it 11-8 after four innings, QND senior Abram Wiewel led off the fifth by belting his sixth home run in the last seven games, extending his homer streak to four games.

“He’s pretty hot, man,” Polak said. “It’s been fun to watch.”

Wiewel said a calm demeanor and simple approach have been the keys to his torrid stretch of hitting.

“I mean, I’m just chilling,” Wiewel said. “I’m trying not to do too much, just trying to get on base and help the team win. I just try to hit the ball right back up the middle, and sometimes it just goes out.”

Johnson, who went 3 for 5 with four RBIs out of the leadoff spot, enjoys having Wiewel’s protection right behind him in the lineup.

“I’ve got ‘Brum’ behind me, so I know if I get on, there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to hit another bomb and it’s going to be 2-0 right off the bat,” Johnson said.

Even after Wiewel’s heroics, the Saukees cut that four-run deficit in half with two runs in the sixth.

“We talked about that since we got done with our game yesterday,” Pittsfield coach Zach Ferguson said. “There’s going to be a moment in this game where we’re going to have a choice of whether to roll over or fight back, and our kids chose to fight back. Once we got going, the momentum shifted in our favor. I felt like our plate discipline was really good tonight, and we were hitting the ball well. I’m proud of our guys for fighting back because that easily could have snowballed into a short-inning game.”

The Raiders (8-4) have won seven of their last eight games and have scored 10 runs or more in four of those contests.

“We’re smoking hot,” Johnson said. “We’ve been swinging it well.”

The Saukees (12-3) suffered their first loss since April 8 after winning four consecutive games.