'They're a nightmare': Chase, Jack Eye power Windham over rival Bristol in baseball
WINDHAM — A good weekend got even better for Windham Sunday.
On Friday, the Bombers traveled to Eastwood Field and tossed a no-hitter against Lordstown.
On Saturday, Windham topped Chalker on the road.
On Sunday, the Bombers followed with arguably their biggest win of the season.
Looking to avenge an earlier loss to rival Bristol, Windham got big performances from the Eye brothers, Chase and Jack, and the bottom of the lineup delivered late for a 6-2 Northeastern Athletic Conference victory. The Bombers, just 2-5 when they hopped on the bus to Eastwood Field, thus more than doubled their win total in 72 hours.
"We've kind of been up and down," Windham coach Jake Eye said. "The weather's kind of hampered our season a bit, but here as of late, three wins in a row, and it's always good to beat Bristol, your NAC rival."
Chase, Jack Eye stand out for Windham baseball
How important were the Eye brothers Sunday?
Well, not only did they pitch all seven innings for the Bombers (5-5, 5-5), with Chase allowing just two runs in six strong innings, but they also recorded all three of the team's hits against Panthers ace Kaiden Kohler.
The duo set a tone in the bottom of the first after sophomore catcher Dylan McCune's leadoff walk.
Four pitches later, Chase Eye, playing what is likely the final home game of his career, brought McCune home with an RBI triple to the right-field gap.
"I expected curveball after curveball after curveball coming to me because I remember when we played him back just earlier this season, he threw two curveballs back to back in a 3-2 count to me," Chase Eye said. "So that's all I expected from him and, when I saw it coming, I read it off his fingers and took it right center."
After his younger brother, Jack, was hit by a pitch and tacked on a stolen base to put runners on second and third, the brothers came up with another impressive play. When Kohler's 2-2 pitch to Windham's Anthony Paolella squirted past the catcher, it seemed innocent enough. The ball didn't even make it to the Bombers' short backstop. That didn't matter to the speedy Chase Eye, who barreled home for a 2-0 lead. And when the flip from the catcher trickled off the covering pitcher's glove, in came an alert Jack Eye to push Windham's lead to three.
"When those two get on the bases, Lord, they're a nightmare," Jake Eye said. "Obviously, they're both quick, fast, but they're real heady and Jack's probably our smartest baserunner. They're just two athletes making plays."
Still, Sunday's rivalry game was tense throughout, especially after Bristol's Brent Songer sent a two-run single up the middle to make it 3-2 in the third.
Indeed, the Panthers nearly tied it in the sixth when, with a runner on third and two outs, Mikey Burbach sent a dangerous flare over the shortstop. Except the ball never actually made it over Jack Eye, with the sophomore shortstop going back on the ball and making the difficult catch.
"As soon as it came off the bat, it's almost like I knew where it was going to go," Eye said. "Just the way the ball was going tonight, it was just dying, so as soon as it came off the bat I just thought it was going to die. So I just turned and ran to where I thought it was going to go and it happened to go where I was at."
The sophomore was just getting started.
After Chase Eye's infield single leading off the sixth, Jack Eye boomed an RBI double to the right-field gap for a critical insurance run. Two more runs came home with aggressive base-running, one on a wild pitch and the last on a fielder's choice as Paolella beat the throw home on a grounder to short.
"I'm aggressive on the bases," Jake Eye said. "I don't care if you're the slowest kid, we're stealing. We're going to hit and run. We're going to steal. We're going to do a lot of crazy stuff and it may work out, it may not."
Jack Eye still wasn't quite done.
He also came on in relief and tossed a scoreless seventh.
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Chase, Jack Eye excel as Windham tops rival Bristol in NAC baseball
