George-Little Rock scores convincing District tourney win over Hawks
Once again, George-Little Rock has ended Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn’s baseball season. The Mustangs blitzed HMS 15-4 in six innings in a Class 1A District 1 first round game played July 1 at Marcus. In 2021, George-Little Rock scored all of its runs in one inning of a 14-1 District tourney victory over the Hawks. HMS concludes the year with a record of 5-16. With the win the Mustangs improved to 3-18 on the season.
“Obviously, not the way we wanted to end our season,” commented Hawk head coach Jeremy Gloden. “Deja vu from two years ago. Looking at the stats going in, we knew George-Little Rock could hit the ball. The big thing for us was going to be trying to limit them while being able to score enough runs ourselves. I liked how we responded in the bottom of the first and tied it up at one. Unfortunately, we gave up too many free bases and we kicked it around on top of that. Things just snowballed on us. Very disappointing for sure, but the guys coming back will need to learn from this and push themselves to get better during the off-season.”
Trenton Vollink led off the HMS first with a double. It was one of three hits on the night for the senior. With two outs, Vollink stole second and then scored easily on a double off the bat of Jacob Cates.
The Hawks tallied three unearned runs in the sixth. Cates reached on an error to lead off the inning. Courtesy runner Ben Waddell swiped both second and third base before Bradley Van Beek drew a walk. Aiden Bush then hit a sacrifice fly to right field with Waddell sliding home safely. A base hit by Evan Eilers moved Van Beek to second. With two outs Ethan Diehm walked to fill the bases. Vollink then stroked another two-bagger, driving in both Van Beek and Eilers.
HMS recorded a total of seven hits in the game. Bush singled in the second but was caught stealing. Eilers laced a two-out double in the fourth but the Hawks left a pair on base. The fifth inning saw Vollink notch a base hit. He stole second and third but was left stranded. HMS left seven runners on base and the Mustangs 10.
Cates was tabbed to start the game on the mound. He went 3-1/3 innings, yielding eight runs on five hits. Five of the runs were earned. Cates struck out five batters, walked three and hit two. Tyson Tessum pitched the remaining 2-2/3 innings, allowing seven runs (four earned) on five hits. His line also showed four walks, three hit batters and two strikeouts.
The Hawks committed seven errors. George-Little Rock was guilty of two.
This was the final game for seniors Diehm, Tessum, Vollink and Tanner Tesch.
GLR 1 3 0 6 0 5 – 15
HMS 1 0 0 0 0 3 – 4