Oh, so close: Wiewel carries no-hitter into seventh inning as Raiders down Mustangs

QUINCY — Off the field, Quincy Notre Dame junior Abram Wiewel is a light-hearted jokester. On the field, he turns into a junkyard dog.

“When I’m pitching, I get into a completely different mindset,” Wiewel said. “I want to hunt you down and destroy you.”

Monday, Wiewel annihilated the Mendon Unity baseball team’s offense, throwing a complete-game one-hitter in QND’s 5-1 victory at Ferd Niemann Jr. Memorial Ballfield.

“He’s got that in him every time he goes out there,” QND coach Rich Polak said. “He struggled a little bit early on with his breaking ball, but as soon as he had that, it doesn’t matter if we’re playing Unity or whoever, it’s going to be a rough day at the plate for a lot of hitters.”

Wiewel expects that to be the case.

“That’s what I prepare for,” he said. “That’s what I expect every time I go out there.”

Wiewel held the Mustangs out of the hit column until one out in the seventh when junior right fielder Skylor Goudschaal drove an 0-2 pitch to right field for a single, driving in the Mustangs’ only run in the process.

“I just saw the fastball out and decided to take it oppo,” Goudschaal said. “It felt pretty good off the barrel.”

Said Wiewel, “He earned that. He stayed back on it and hit it the other way.”

Polak called for a fastball on that 0-2 pitch, a decision he wished he had back about 10 seconds later when the ball sailed over first baseman Ethan Rose’s glove and landed in the outfield grass.

“I feel for (Wiewel),” Polak said. “I probably should have gone with breaking ball there. I thought that pitch was pretty good, but Goudschaal just put a good swing on it.”

Wiewel said having a no-hitter broken up on a well-struck single like Goudschaal’s isn’t the worst-case scenario.

“It did feel good that it wasn’t some dinky hit,” Wiewel said.

Wiewel struck out 11 batters, walked one, and threw 66 of his 102 pitches for strikes.

Raiders catcher Nick Spears said Wiewel’s command makes his job behind the plate relatively easy.

“It’s just fun to catch him,” Spears said. “He’s really accurate, so you don’t have to work very hard back there.”

A Cale Linenfelser RBI double with one out in the bottom of the second brought in the first Raiders’ first run. Logan Sutton struck out, Oliver Tripplett hit a fly ball that barely cleared Goudschaal’s glove and drove in Rose and Linenfelser. After Wiewel walked, Evan Kenning singled, scoring Triplett and giving the Raiders a 4-0 lead.

In the bottom of the third, sophomore center fielder Gavin Doellman got a 1-0 pitch from Mustangs pitcher Cody Shaffer to his liking and powered it through the wind and off a light pole in left center field to extend the Raiders’ lead to 5-0.

“It felt really good off the bat,” Doellman said. “With the wind, I just wasn’t sure if it was going to go out or not, so I had to sprint until I knew it was gone.”

The Raiders (8-10) will host Clark County on Tuesday, and the Mustangs (14-4) will take on Illini West in Mendon. Unity also will play Clark County on Friday.

Unity was coming off a loss at Pittsfield on Saturday, which ended the Mustangs’ 13-game win streak. Mustangs coach Tyler McAllister said he likes to challenge his team against quality opponents.

“We want to see those teams,” he said. “We’re going to see (teams like that) in the postseason. We’re not afraid to play anybody.”