Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn picked up its first win of the young season with a 10-2 victory over Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire May 18 at Ruthven. The Hawks scored three runs in the second inning, two in the fourth and put five more on the board in the seventh. Meanwhile, the Titans were held scoreless until the sixth inning. With the win, HMS leveled its record at 1-1.
The eight Hawk hits were divided up among seven batters. Tanner Tesch went 2-for-4, including a double. He scored a second-inning run on Bradley Van Beek’s RBI two-bagger. Tesch also singled and scored in the fourth. Trenton Vollink’s two-base hit cleared the bases in the seventh. Jacob Cates delivered a fifth-inning RBI double. Jack Mastbergen and Blake Meendering each stroked a single and scored a run in the seventh. Tyson Tessum’s base hit came in the sixth.
“I was glad to see the bats get going Thursday night,” remarked Hawk head coach Jeremy Gloden. “We had some guys finally break into the hit column and I’m hoping that builds more confidence. The seventh inning was big for us because we were able to stretch a 5-1 lead to 10-1. Trenton had a big bases clearing hit to put the game away.”
Cates got the start and was the winning pitcher. Evan Eilers pitched the final two innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on one hit and four walks. He fanned two batters. “Jacob had a solid night on the mound,” said Gloden. “He had 11 strikeouts and gave up no hits. He did have six walks, which drove up his pitch count. However, he was able to pitch himself out of several jams. Evan came in and finished the game. He got himself into a jam in the seventh, but was able to work out of that. My big takeaway was we avoided the big inning and we were able to strand nine Titan runners on base. It was a good team win!”
HMS 0 3 0 2 0 0 5 – 10
GTRA 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 – 2