Things just snowballed

George-Little Rock lived up to its reputation for having a good hitting team in the first round of the Class 1A district tournament. The Mustangs hit the ball well, especially during three big innings, to defeat Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, 15-4, on July 1 at Marcus.

Although they only scored one run, G-LR set the tone in the first inning.

"Looking at the stats going in, we knew George-Little Rock could hit. The big thing for us was going to be trying to limit them while being able to score enough runs ourselves," said Hawk coach Jeremy Gloden.

H-M-S quickly answered with a run in its half of the opening inning. Trenton Vollink led off with a double and scored on a two-out double by Jacob Cates.

Three runs in the second inning put G-LR back on top. Two innings later, 12 Mustangs batted and six of them scored. With five more runs in the sixth inning, G-LR extended its lead to 15-1.

"I liked how we responded in the bottom of the first," Gloden noted. "Unfortunately, we gave up too many free bases and we kicked it around on top of that. Things just snowballed on us."

The Hawks concluded the scoring in the sixth. Aiden Bush drove in the first run with a sacrifice fly and Vollink drove in two more with his second double.

Vollink was 3-for-4 at the plate, while Evan Eilers was 2-for-3 with a double. Bush and Cates had the other hits for H-M-S.

Cates was the starting and losing pitcher. He gave up five hits and eight runs (five earned), walked three and struck out five. Tyson Tessum pitched 2-2/3 innings in relief, allowing five hits, seven runs (four earned) and four walks. He struck out two.

"It was very disappointing for sure, but the guys coming back will need to learn from this and push themselves to get better during the offseason," Gloden said.

H-M-S concludes the 2023 season with a record of 5-16.

G-LR (3-18) advanced to the second round of the district tournament where they lost, 16-0, to top-seeded Kingsley-Pierson.