Highland baseball team wins over Notre Dame

RIVERSIDE ? The season is new and only three games have been played, but for the Highland baseball team, they have won those games without allowing any of their opponents to score. In the team?s home opener against Burlington Notre Dame Thursday, May 25, the Huskies won by a 3-0 final score and now have a 3-0 record.

The game would remain scoreless until the bottom of the third inning, when senior Bill Burton would hit a fly to the fence at centerfield to get a triple and bring in Jake Wood.

He says of the play, ?it felt good. It had been a while since the team had a hit. We were struggling and needed something to get us going. That fueled us a little bit.?

Coach Seth Milledge says he likes to see the balls travel that far.

?Any time we can get a ball to the fence, we?ll take it,? he says. ?The thing is we are a team that likes to run and do those things, but right now we?re not allowing ourselves to do those things.

?We got picked off twice tonight and we didn?t steal the bags that much, either, nor did we put ourselves in opportunities to even try to. Those are the things we look at and try to improve on. We want to give ourselves at-bats and appearances on the base pass so we can do what we like to do.?

Burton would score on a grounder to the short stop by Chase Rath putting the score at 2-0 after three innings.

Since Burton helped bring in the first run of the game he says it?s a good feeling.

?Anything you can do to help the team win makes you feel good about yourself and makes the team as a whole feel good.?

Notre Dame tried to add a run to the board in the fifth inning, after putting a runner on both first and second, but the pair would be left stranded after the third out. Highland scored one more run in the sixth after Robbie Yoder scored after stealing home plate to put the score at 3-0.

Milledge likes to see the team where they are right now.

?It?s good. There?s things we can certainly improve on. We didn?t hit the ball extremely well tonight, and that?s something we?re continuing to work on. We have great defense with Josh Michael and Jared Schnoebelen shutting Notre Dame down. That?s three shutouts in a row that we?ve had this year.

?Overall I feel good but there?s always room for improvement. We?re never satisfied. We need to get motivated and continue to get better at the plate for sure.?

As for a positive to take away from the game Milledge is pleased with the team?s defense.

?Jake Wood making a play in right field and getting the Notre Dame player out early in the game was nice. We?ve backed up our pitchers really well with defense. We?re doing the simple plays really well right now and obviously with our pitching, we haven?t allowed a run yet this season. When you think about that, we?ve played 20 innings and haven?t allowed a run. We?re certainly pitching and fielding at a high level.?

Winning their third-straight game by a shutout is nice, Burton says.

?It?s huge. Our main focus this year is defense. We haven?t gotten on the bats a lot so far this year, but holding teams to zero runs, they can?t beat us.?

The boys are host to West Liberty tonight so there isn?t a lot of time to get ready.

?We don?t have a lot of time, but we will get in cage and certainly get to work about an hour before the game,? Milledge says. ?We will certainly work on hitting. Caleb Brase will take to the mound. We feel confident in him. We are looking forward to it.?

Burton says he is going to focus on getting more reps before tonight?s game.

?I?m going to get in the cage and get them along with the whole team,? he says. ?We are struggling with that right now and we have to get it going.?

The game against West Liberty starts at 7 p.m. at Highland High School.