Just 1 inning is the difference for Hawk hardballers

One baseball game was close and one game wasn't. In both cases, Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn came out on the short end of the score.

In action on May 26 in Hartley, H-M-S gave up the lead in the fifth inning against MMCRU and eventually lost, 6-4.

H-M-S struck first offensively. Trenton Vollink led off the first inning with a single, stole two bases and scored on a single by Jordan Ortega. After MMCRU tied the score in the second inning, Vollink again started things in the third with a walk. He scored on a double by Jacob Cates, who later stole home to add another run.

The 3-1 lead held up until the fifth, when MMCRU scored five runs. The Royals had three hits and took advantage of opportunities to keep the inning alive.

"Overall I liked how we battled against a very quality opponent," said Hawk coach Jeremy Gloden. "That one bad inning just continues to find us. We need to continue to find a way to avoid those in order to win these types of games."

H-M-S edged closer in the sixth when Keaton Graves walked and scored on a groundout.

Vollink, Ortega and Cates had the only hits for H-M-S.

Cates pitched 4-2/3 innings and allowed five hits, walked three and struck out seven. Tyson Tessum allowed two hits and struck out two in 2-1/3 scoreless innings.

"Jacob threw well until he ran into trouble in the fifth," Gloden noted. "I really like how Tyson came in and kept us in it."

• vs. Harris-Lake Park

A big inning gave Harris-Lake Park the early lead and an even-bigger inning at the end settled the outcome of their 15-3 win on May 27 in Hartley.

The Wolves got off to a fast start, taking a 5-0 lead in the War Eagle Conference contest despite having just two hits.

"I felt like we came out flat and H-LP came out swinging. They took advantage of the opportunities we gave them," Gloden observed.

The Hawks settled down and limited the Wolves to two baserunners over the next three innings. In the third, Vollink singled and scored on Cates' sacrifice fly. In the next inning, a passed ball allowed Tessum to score and a sacrifice fly by Graves drove Vollink home to make the score 5-3.

H-M-S could have narrowed the gap more but left the bases loaded in both innings.

"I would like to have seen us score a few more runs than we did. I feel like if we could have tied it up or taken the lead, things may have ended differently for us," Gloden said.

Things "snowballed" on H-M-S in the fifth inning, when H-LP scored 10 runs on six hits.

At the plate, Tanner Tesch contributed two singles while Graves, Tessum and Vollink each had one hit.

Ortega pitched the first 4-1/3 innings and allowed eight runs and four hits, walked four and struck out three. Nick Bronstad gave up seven runs, five hits and four walks.

H-M-S (1-2, 0-1) hosts Gehlen Catholic on June 3 and Hinton on June 8. In between, the Hawks play at Cherokee on June 4 (10 a.m. start) and Akon-Westfield on June 6.