Jul 21, 2013 4 min read

It wasn’t that the Schaumburg Boomers wanted to leave Washington. The schedule made them.

It had been a successful stay for the Boomers, who won almost everything that was contested here in the last week. Schaumburg outfielder Sean Mahley was the Most Valuable Player in the Frontier League All-Star game held Wednesday at Consol Energy Park. Designated hitter Steve McQuail won the Home Run Derby. Heck, even the Boomers’ broadcaster was on the winning team in the bowling tournament that was part of the three-day all-star festivities and had the winner’s trophy with him in the pressbox.

Schaumburg capped its productive week Sunday with a 5-3 victory over the Wild Things, giving the Boomers two wins in the three-game series.

“It was a good series for us. It was a good week for the entire organization,” said Mahley, a native of Cambridge, Ohio, who had many fans in the stands to watch him play. “We have a long ride back to Illinois, so this makes it a little better. This is a good way to start the second half of the season.”

Mahley was instrumental in the key play of the game, but it didn’t involve his hitting or his play in right field. With Schaumburg nursing the 5-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning, Washington put runners on first and second with two outs. The Wild Things had the player they wanted at the plate in hot-hitting Stewart Ijames, who was wearing out Boomers pitching.

Schaumburg manager Jamie Bennett then brought in the left-handed throwing Mahley from right field to pitch to Ijames and get a lefty-against-lefty matchup. Mahley got Ijames to ground out to first base to end the threat.

The Boomers’ James Bierlein then retired the Wild Things in order in the ninth for his fifth save, but it was Mahley who got the key out.

“I’ve been used to pitching in different situations,” said Mahley, who has had made 10 relief appearances and has an impressive 1.80 ERA. “Sometimes, I face one lefty, like I did today, and sometimes I’ll go an entire inning.”

Schaumburg starter Matt Giovenco (6-4) took a five-run lead and one-hit shutout into the seventh inning before Washington finally generated some offense. Consecutive singles by C.J. Beatty, Mark Samuelson and Jovan Rosa pushed across one run. Samuelson scored on a sacrifice fly by Calvin Culver, and Darian Sandford’s single to left centerfield drove in Rosa to make the score 5-3.

Washington starter Zach LeBarron (3-1) didn’t have his best stuff, giving up nine hits and three runs (two earned) in 5 1/3 innings, but he kept Washington within striking distance. The Boomers tacked on two key runs off reliever Matt Phillips in the seventh, getting a two-out run-scoring single by Jordan Drew and a wild pitch that scored Brian McConkey.

“We preach that you can’t give up add-on runs after you fall behind,” Washington manager Bart Zeller said. “But you don’t win many games when you get one hit in the first six innings.”

The win kept second-place Schaumburg on the heels of Gateway in the West Division. The Wild Things fell to eight games behind first-place Traverse City in the East. Washington has lost each of its last five series.

“That’s a very solid team we played,” Zeller said. “One thing they do that we haven’t is use the whole field. They move runners over and make things happen.”

Schaumburg took a 2-0 lead in the second inning and added another run in the sixth, which included an odd play that led the Boomers to playing the game under protest. With Drew at second base, Ty Nelson dropped a single down the right-field line that Ijames hurriedly tried to grab so that he could make a throw to home plate. The ball glanced off Ijames and rolled into the Wild Things’ bullpen, where it went under the fence below the party deck.

Nelson raced around the bases, but umpires Chuck Adya and Mike Martin ruled the play a book-rule double. Schaumburg protested, saying that Ijames had knocked the ball under the fencing.

“It was all moot because we never took the lead,” Zeller said.

Washington filled one of its two vacant roster spots by signing pitcher Andy Smithmyer, an Altoona native who played the last two seasons for East Carolina University. … McConkey drew a seventh-inning walk off Phillips during a 10-pitch at-bat in the seventh inning. Phillips and McConkey were best friends growing up in Santa Maria, Calif.