There’s no way around it – late March and early April was brutal for East Webster baseball.
The Wolverines went through a stretch of games from spring break up to two weeks ago in which they lost seven of eight ball games. Among those was two losses to Choctaw County that lost them a chance to win Class 2A, Region 2, but the Wolverines had a chance to let that drag them down or fight out of it.
EWHS has chosen to fight out of it and the team is back on track. After getting a blowout win over Pelahatchie to end the drought a couple of weeks ago, the Wovlerines came back last week and took three out of the four games and earned two district wins.
The first two games of the week came against Kemper County in district action. The Wolverines took both of them comfortably and earned run-rule wins.
On Monday against the Wildcats, EWHS took an early 6-0 lead and didn’t look back as it ran away with a 15-5 win. It was a game that saw Kemper County actually out-hit the Wolverines nine to six, but three errors from the Wildcats and 12 walks hurt. EWHS walked just two batters and didn’t produce an error.
After a 6-2 lead in the third inning, the Wolverines came through with four runs in the fourth and had a 10-5 lead expand to 15-5 when they scored five runs in the final frame to walk it off in five innings. Luke McKee and Kendall Carden each had two RBI to lead the team while Chandler Hodges pitched 3.0 innings with five hits, two runs, a walk and five strikeouts.
That game was followed up by the Wolverines taking care of business in just three innings on Friday against the Wildcats. Kainan Reed pitched his final game as a Wolverine as his season came to an end with a scheduled shoulder surgery. He threw 3.0 frames, gave up no hits, one unearned run and struck out two and he also went 2-for-2 at the plate with the game winning run scored.
The Wolverines had 12 hits in the game led by Briceton Johnson, Hastings Gibson, Reed and Mckee with two hits each. McKee had two doubles and drove in five runs, Johnson had a triple with two RBI and Gibson had an RBI double.
Sanwiched in between those two games was a contest at French Camp Academy for the Wolverines. After falling behind 2-1 in the first inning, the Wolverines scored nine unanswered runs and came away with a 10-4 win.
It was a really good game for Wolverine pitching as Cade Morrow threw 4.0 strong innings to start giving up just two hits and two unearned runs in that first inning. He walked three batters and struck out eight. Gibson threw 2.0 innings in relief with just two walks and five strikeouts and John Preston Springer pitched the final inning giving up two runs.
The game was broken open by the Wolverines in the second inning when they scored six runs. French Camp had four errors as a team and only had four hits offensively. Johnson, Gibson and James Logan Johnson had two hits in the game. Kaleb Warnock had three runs driven in and a double, Jesse Roberts finished with two RBI and Gibson had two doubles while McKee drove in a home run in the game.
The week was finished off with a challenging game against a good Amory club. The Wolverines were tied with the Panthers 4-4 going into the fifth inning but Amory scored six runs in the final three frames and came away with a tough 10-5 victory.
EWHS gave up 15 hits in a game that it played clean baseball with no errors. Four different pitchers pitched in the game and struck out seven batters with five walks. Carson Norwood drove in two of the five runs with his bat and Warnock had a triple.
“I think we’re headed in the right direction,” head coach Blake Hutchison said. “We played Amory on Saturday and we knew that they were really good. We played pretty well against them. Amory got some big hits late in the game and we got beat by a better team. If we would have playWed against them two weeks ago, they would have killed us.”
Winning four of the last five games has the Wolverines (12-10, 4-2 Region 2) primed to make a push late in the season. They have two huge games this week against rival Eupora and a win in both games will seal up the No. 2 seed in the district.
The first game was slated for Tuesday night while the two will meet in Cumberland on Thursday at 7 p.m.
“Everybody that I’ve talked to about them has said that you can’t look at their record. They have really competed, especially lately,” Hutchison said of the Eagles. “They had a close one with Choctaw and competed. We’re going to have to go out there and take care of business and not take them lightly.”
