Seneca Baseball moves to 4-0 with wins over La Farge, De Soto and North Crawford
By Derick Kelly
The Seneca Royals baseball team picked up three wins to move to 4-0 early in the season.
On Monday, April 8, the Royals traveled to La Farge to take on the Wildcats and the Royals returned home with a 17-1 victory in 5 innings. The Royals used a five run first inning to build a lead the never relinquished. They added another run in the second, two in the third and nine more in the top of the fifth to earn the 17-1 victory.
Dawson Davidson was on top of his game at the plate (4-for-5 with a double, two runs and two RBIs) and on the mound (one run allowed on three hits and three walks with four strikeouts in four innings pitched to earn the win) to lead the Royals. Seneca also got three hits (including a double) and four RBIs from Jacob Payne and two hits and three RBIs from Kaden Roberts in the win. Briar Wall and Hunter Hagensick each had a double while Hagensick and Jack Gallagher also had two RBIs each.
Three nights later the Royals used an early 3-0 lead and the strong arm of Gallagher to build an early lead against De Soto before adding four more runs in the fifth as the Royals cruised to a 7-0 victory at home over the Pirates.
Gallagher continued his strong start to the season on the mound with a complete game shutout in which he allowed just two hits and three walks in earning the win while striking out three. B. Wall was the leading the hitter for the Royals with a 2-for-3 night at the plate with a double, one run scored and two RBIs. Hagensick added three RBIs for the Royals.
On Monday night, the Royals hosted North Crawford and earned a 7-3 comeback victory. The Royals scored two runs in the bottom of the first before North Crawford responded in the second with three runs of their own to give the Royals their first deficit of the season so far.
Seneca got the lead back with two runs in the bottom of the fourth and then added three insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth to take a 7-3 lead into the seventh inning before stopping a potential Trojans rally with a game-ending double play.
Payne got the victory for the Royals with five strong innings of five hit, three run baseball while walking four and striking out five. Roberts came on in relief to pitch the final two innings and only allowed one hit while striking out two. Reggie George paced the Royals offense with a 2-for-2 showing at the plate with one RBI. Gage Wall hit a triple, while Payne and Roberts each hit a double.
The Royals follow up Tuesday night’s showdown with Ithaca by traveling to Wauzeka on Thursday to take on the Hornets before returning home Saturday to host a triangular with Cashton and Onalaska Luther at 9 a.m.
