Portage bounces Chesterton from sectional with 8-3 comeback win Friday night at Valparaiso, Trojans finish season 15-13

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

It took all of a half-inning of the Valparaiso sectional for junior center fielder Rob Czarniecki and sophomore catcher Caden Hackett to show a glimpse of why the Chesterton baseball team missed them so much during their injuries.
Czarniecki crushed a one-out home run, way over the fence in left-center, and Hackett belted a run-scoring double to center to put the Trojans up two runs against Portage, sending imaginations running wild with thoughts that maybe, just maybe, this team was capable of a second consecutive sectional title.
It didn’t happen. Portage exploded with six runs in the bottom of the second and went on to win 8-3 in a game interrupted by a 47-minute lightning delay in the top of the fourth inning.
The positive early vibes kept flowing when junior left fielder Troy Barrett threw out by a Portage runner trying to score from second with two outs and continued when the Trojans scored a run in the second to take a 3-0 lead.
But in the end, pitching depth and hitting depth that couldn’t match last season’s surfaced and prevented the Trojans from reaching a title game vs. Valparaiso on Monday.
Other than Barrett, who went all six innings in season-ending, 7-0 victory vs. Washington Township on Tuesday, none of the pitchers had recent work. Starter Kaden Hawksworth had not thrown in a game since eight days earlier in a loss to Valparaiso. He walked three, struck out four and allowed six hits and six earned runs in 1-2/3 innings. A ball hit to the outfield was lost in the lights, a stroke of bad luck that didn’t help the pitcher.
Dylan Bradford, who followed Hawksworth to the mound, made his first game appearance in nine days. He walked three, struck out three, retired four batters and allowed one run.
Barrett pitched the final three innings, struck out five, didn’t walk anybody and allowed one earned run.
“When Troy’s out there, we expect to win,” Czarniecki said after his 10th game of the season. “We just didn’t do enough today.”
Czarniecki and Barrett, the team’s best players, will be back next season.
Me and him out there, it’s a ton of fun, just talking, going to hit together, so I’m excited to see what the future has for him,” Czarniecki said.
An all-state selection as a sophomore, Czarniecki suffered a leg injury doing sprints in the cold during pregame conditioning, reinjured the leg early in the season. He initially came back as a designated hitter, then was cleared to play center but never did pitch.
The Trojans went 7-3 in games with Czarniecki and 9-10 in the rest. He walked nine times, drove in six runs and led the team with two home runs.
“I mean, for me, I always want more,” Czarniecki said. “Coming back, I thought I could have done a better job. It was hard for me to know that I can’t expect the results right away because I missed so much time, so I just tried to do what I could with it.”
Portage junior right-hander Hunter Cole went the distance, walked three, struck out nine and allowed eight hits. He did his best work after the lightning interruption, striking out five in the final two innings.
“He was awesome,” Chesterton coach John Bogner said. “I told him it was probably one of the better outings I’ve seen all year. I’d take him in a minute. Whether it was a ball or strike, you couldn’t really tell the difference looking at him, and he just kept coming at us, coming at us. We just, we didn’t have it.”
The Trojans lose six seniors to graduation, chief among them strong-armed right fielder Nick Foust, a three-year starter who batted .321 and drove in 22 runs.
“We just have to get back to work, work on hitting, fielding, pitching, just the whole game, just come back and use this as motivation,” Czarniecki said. “It’s never fun getting bounced in the first round.”