Unity Christian strikes early to down Hawks
The early afternoon starting time of the baseball game between Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn and Unity Christian appeared to be to the Knights’ liking. Unity scored 10 runs in the first and went on to defeat HMS 14-3 in five innings June 10 at Orange City. With the loss the Hawks fell to 1-5 in the War Eagle Conference and 2-8 overall.
The Knights had seven hits in a first inning that also saw HMS walk two batters, hit another and commit two errors. After that, the Hawks cleaned up their defense for the most part but a passed ball on a called third strike resulted in Unity Christian scoring three unearned runs in the fourth.
HMS opened the scoring with a run in the first. Trenton Vollink drew a base-on-balls and Jordan Ortega followed with a single. Jacob Cates’ base hit plated Vollink. The Hawks added two more runs in the third. Again it was Vollink leading off and reaching base, this time by way of a hit. He stole second. Ortega coaxed a walk and a passed ball advanced the runners. Vollink came home on Cates’ sacrifice fly to center field. A balk call moved courtesy runner Jack Mastbergen to third and Nick Bronstad was hit by a pitch. Tanner Tesch’s ground ball forced Bronstad at second but Tesch picked up an RBI when Mastbergen scored on the play.
There was a fourth hit for HMS. That came in the fourth inning. Tyson Tessum had walked with two outs and Vollink followed with a single. A walk to Ortega loaded the bases. The inning ended on a fly ball to left by Cates.
Ortega got the start and was the pitcher of record. He went 3-2/3 innings and allowed all 14 runs but only two of them were earned. Ortega yielded 11 hits, struck out three batters, walked an equal number and hit one batter. He was relieved by Tessum with two out in the fourth. Tessum gave up a pair of RBI singles before inducing a fly ball to center to end the inning.
HMS 1 0 2 0 0 – 3
Unity 10 0 0 4 x – 14