Washington baseball team wins season opener at home Tuesday

It was a long night for the Washington baseball team, but the end result was worth it as the Demons won over the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Rockets 16-12.

Eddyville started off the game by putting up four runs in the first inning.

Washington tried to recover when Zachary Londberg was able to get across the plate putting the score at 1-4 after the inning.

After the first inning when Eddyville scored four runs coach Nathan Miller wasn?t nervous.

?One of the benefits of having seniors is you hope they handle the adversity and are able to battle back and chip away,? he said.

It was three up and three down for Eddyville in the second. In Washington?s half of the frame, they would take advantage of loaded bases to score runs.

Luke Turner would be walked in for a run followed by a single to left field by Ryan Loy bringing in the second run of the inning.

Noah Enfield would score a run on a wild pitch to tie the game before pitcher Dakota Kron hit a grounder to the shortstop to drive in two more runs. The score would be 6-4 Washington at the end of the second.

After striking out one and walking the next two Eddyville players, a pitching change was made for Washington. Erik Murphy took to the mound where he would only allow two players to score in the remaining part of the inning when the score would be tied.

Washington pulled ahead for good in the bottom half of the third after Aaron Vittetoe and Bryce Craft would both get on base after being hit by a pitch.

Eddyville made a pitching change, and the new pitcher would give up five runs to put the score at 11-6.

Eddyville worked on eliminating some of their deficit in the top of the fourth but could only muster two runs.

Washington pulled even further ahead as they scored four runs, two of which came from players being walked.

The score was 15-8 after four innings of play.

Both teams would only bring three batters to the plate in the fifth inning. In the sixth, Eddyville scored a run after a wild throw making the score 15-9.

After being walked in the bottom of the sixth, Enfield would have a chance to steal second base and advance to third on a wile pitch.

Loy would get out on a sacrifice fly bringing Enfield into home for another run to put the score at 16-9.

Eddyville wanted to have one last attempt at scoring in the seventh which they did as they put up three runs, but it wasn?t enough as Washington would get the win.

Coach Nathan Miller said of the boys? effort, ?I thought after the first inning the way our at-bats were and definitely after the second, I knew and the boys sensed that there was a lot of game left

?If we put a lot of quality at-bats together, there?s no reason we can?t put up the runs we put up tonight.

?I credit our kids at the plate. They were patient, but yet ready.

?Many times when you have the walks and hit batters, it?s hard to stay locked in and stay disciplined and still drive the ball. Our guys maintained their discipline.

?Our outs were hard outs. By that I mean it wasn?t like there were many dribblers or soft pop flies, they were hard line outs that were happening.

?We want that to continue. We?d love to have that for the whole season, it?d be great.?

Miller was also pleased with the pitching during the game.

?For the first night out, Dakota Kron, the senior had never started before. He only threw seven innings for us last year.

?Erik Murphy had never thrown varsity before and came in and gave us solid middle innings.

?We finished up with Zach Londberg. That was basically his work to get ready for Friday.

While the team won, it wasn?t easy, Miller says.

?We had a rough night defensively,? he says.

?We can?t let it linger when we play against Clear Creek-Amana (CCA), but we have to apply what we?re doing in practice and how we are preparing ourselves into the game set.

?We have to slow the game down and we have to read the field. We also have to read what?s going on and trust our instincts.

?We had an array of different things from physical errors to some mental errors.

?The combination, when you look at the score, could very easily have been 16-4 game.?

Since the boys play at CCA tonight, there isn?t a lot of time to practice, but the team will still be on the field.

?What?s nice is the kids have finals today, so they are done at 11:30.

?We?ll have several kids here at the yard putting in some work before we go. They will all be here at 2:45 getting some work in.

?We are going to cover some situational stuff to prepare a few things.

?Otherwise, it?s just the nature of the beast with baseball.

?You get back on the horse and you move forward.

?You take what struggles you had the night before and you learn from them and move forward.

?The key is, and what I hope is with our large senior group, is that we don?t hang on to the negative things.

?Focus on what we did great tonight. We scored 16 runs, we threw strikes for the most part and we got outs and won the game.?

The boys will take to the field at Clear Creek tonight starting at 5:30 p.m. and will play at Fort Madison Friday.