By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
Jimmy Allen’s absence from the Timothy Christian baseball team turned out to be much briefer than anticipated.
Allen suffered a broken nose during a game on the team’s recent spring training trip to Florida that was thought to have sidelined him for several weeks.
Allen, however, was back in action during a recent Metro Suburban Conference Red Division game against Walther Christian in a game that saw the two teams combine for as many hits (8) as they had combined errors.
Allen threw four scoreless relief innings to earn the victory over the visiting Broncos, striking out five, while walking only one and giving up one hit.
Walther scored a run in the top of the first inning on an error, sacrifice bunt, passed ball and single. The Broncos tacked on two more runs in the top of the third inning on a hit batter, two hits and two more Timothy errors.
Timothy scored its first run in the fourth inning when Allen walked, stole second, advanced to third on a bad throw by the catcher and scored on an overthrow to third.
“We got down 3-0 in the bottom of the fourth and Jimmy got on base, stole second and had a beautiful slide into home. He scored all the way from first on that play and it seemed to spark us,” said Timothy coach Jim Snoeyink. “It seemed to give us more life.”
The Trojans took the lead in the bottom of the fifth. After the first two batters were retired, Trent Marrera reached on an error. Marrera scored on Harrison Stanton’s double to center. Allen then beat out an infield hit. Stanton and Allen scored on Connor Gwaltney’s double to deep center.
Allen then retired Walther in order in the sixth and seventh innings to close it out. Walther was limited to three hits in the contest.
“We got behind early and then came back and won it. It was a good win for us,” said Snoeyink.
Timothy assistant coach Jim Boven noted Allen saw a specialist the morning of the Walther game who said it would be OK for him to play in the game that afternoon. The next day Allen had his nose reset, sat out for a few days and was ready to go late in the week, Boven added.
“It worked out fairly well for Jimmy because we ended up not playing any more games during the week (last week due to weather),” Snoeyink added.
The Walther win pushed the Trojans to 6-4 overall and 3-0 in MSC Red play.
“We didn’t play particularly well in Florida but some of that was Jimmy got hit in the third inning of the second game we played,” said Snoeyink. “We had guys playing out of position and it hurt our pitching staff. He was going to pitch the second game that day and we had to scramble. At the same time it was a good learning experience for us. We had a lot of guys playing different positions. With him back, hopefully we’ll get healthy here and start playing good baseball again.”
Snoeyink has been pleased with the efforts of Marrera thus far this season.
“Trent has done very well,” the coach said. “He started the year hitting seventh and we moved him up to leadoff and he has been getting on base. That allowed us to move Jimmy Allen into the third spot. Trent also threw a very good game in our last game in Florida. He went the distance.”
Timothy had games cancelled last week with Fenton, Walther Christian and Lisle. The Trojans were scheduled to play DePaul College Prep and Walther earlier this week. Timothy is scheduled to play Riverside-Brookfield today in a MSC crossover and will make up the Fenton game Saturday.
“We’ve had some young kids who have stepped up lately,” said Snoeyink. “We’re still real hopeful about what can happen with this team the rest of the year.”
