MTZ baseball goes 1-2 last week

By BLAKE FAITH
Staff Writer

The Mt. Zion baseball team went 1-2 last week picking up a win against Pleasant Plains and suffering a doubleheader loss to Lincoln.

Against Pleasant Plains, the Braves ended the bottom of the seventh tied 4-4. This made the third game this season, in which the Braves entered the extra innings and the first two resulted in losses.

In the eighth and ninth inning, neither team scored a run. The Braves bats started to warm up after Toney Alford and Sam Driscoll got on base from two consecutive errors from the second baseman.

Jackson Beiler and Kolby Koslofski were both walked which brought the lead run in for the Braves to give them a 5-4 lead. Gavin McInerney then stepped to the plate and battled to his last strike. The battle paid off when McInerny got a one RBI single to give the Braves a 6-4 lead.

Drew Hittmeier came to the plate next and bit a two-RBI single to the left-field gap to give the Braves an 8-4 lead. A few batters later Evan Hamrick hit a one-RBI single to the centerfield gap to give the Braves a 9-4 lead and give him his third hit of the night. Hittmeier ended the scoring for the Braves when he scored off an error as the Braves were up 9-4.

The Braves held on to win 9-5.

“We’ve been in a lot of close games this year and we haven’t come up on the winning end, “We’re a young baseball team and we’re learning how to win baseball games. Today was a huge step for us to learn how to win baseball games.”

The Braves were on a five-game losing streak prior to Pleasant Plains, but you wouldn’t know that from the energy and noises coming from the dugout. Coach Arnold knew that would be needed in order to help win the game.

“Because I talked to them about their energy level on Saturday and I told them in order for us to break a five game losing streak, we’re gonna have to have a lot of energy to do so,” Coach Arnold said. “We had energy from the first inning all the way to the 10th inning. And that’s the most energy we’ve had all year long, all year long and it was great and awesome.”

The Braves improve to 7-10 overall and 3-5 in conference play. This week the Braves will face Williamsville, Tolono Unity and Charleston.