W-S baseball goes 3-0 to move into a tie for second place in the Ridge & Valley Conference
By Derick Kelly
The Wauzeka-Steuben Hornets baseball team collected three wins in conference last week to move into a tie for second place in the Ridge & Valley Conference. The Hornets rallied for a 3-2 win at La Farge on Monday, April 22 before sweeping a home doubleheader with North Crawford on Thursday with wins of 10-0 and 18-12.
Trailing by one heading into the top of the seventh inning at La Farge on Monday night, the Hornets used a lead off single by Theo Millin, a sacrifice by Alex Manning that moved Millin to second before a pair of errors by the La Farge defense allowed Millin to tie the game at 2-2. Ben Bird hit a double to center field with two outs before Cooper Lomas singled to right field to score Bird and give the Hornets their first lead of the game.
Cohen Redman came on to pitch in relief of Bird to close out the game in the bottom half of the inning and earned the save despite a lead off single by the Wildcats.
Bird lead the offense with his double and on the mound with his pitching (two runs on five hits and one walk while striking out four in six innings pitched).
The Hornets welcomed North Crawford to town three nights later for a doubleheader and came away with wins of 10-0 (in five innings) and 18-12.
Following a scoreless first inning, W-S managed to score in each of the last four innings. The Hornets scored two runs in the second, five in the third, two in the fourth and one in the fifth to end the game via the ten-run rule.
Brett Wagner (2-for-3 with four RBIs and one walk) and Ruger Paetz (2-for-3 with two runs scored and one walk) each had multiple hits to lead the Hornets at the plate. Redman (two runs) and Jonah Klema (three runs) also each scored multiple runs.
Bird got the win on the mound by allowing no runs on three hits and three walks in five innings pitched. He collected five strike outs in the win.
The second game of the day was a much wilder affair as the Trojans jumped out to 6-0 lead after two innings before the Hornets started to chip into the lead with three runs in the third and one in the fourth to make the score 6-4. North Crawford answered with four runs of their own in their half of the fourth inning to push the score to 10-4.
The Hornets offense would however explode in the fifth inning with nine runs and five more in the sixth to make the score 18-10. The Trojans would score twice in the bottom of the seventh but the Hornets were able to hold on for the 18-12 comeback victory.
W-S got multiple hits from Wagner (2-for-5 with three runs scored, three RBIs and one walk), Bird (3-for-4 with three runs scored, two RBIs and two walks), Lomas (3-for-4 with a double, three runs scored, two RBIs and two walks), Redman (2-for-5 with a triple, two runs scored and three RBIs) and Millin (2-for-4 with one run scored, two RBIs and one walk). Adding an extra base hit for the Hornets was Dakota Cox (1-for-4 with a double, two runs scored, one RBI and one walk).
Redman got the win on the mound for the Hornets (two runs on one hit and six walks while striking out five in three innings pitched).
The Hornets moved their record to 6-3 overall and into a tie for second place in the Ridge & Valley Conference with De Soto at 5-2. The Hornets traveled to Stoddard on Monday for a showdown with De Soto before they entertain Weston this Thursday evening.
