A big key in baseball is not giving away free bases or giving teams opportunities to make plays happen.
East Webster made sure those free plays were few and far between in the first round of the baseball playoffs against O’Bannon. The Wolverines threw two no-hitters in a couple of run-rule affairs that would push them on to the next round as Cade Morrow and Jesse Roberts combined to surrender four walks in those games and the defense had just two errors combined.
“I think our pitchers did well. We told them to just locate the fastball and they did. In two games, we had five walks and I was really pleased with that,” Hutchison said. “They only put two balls in play so it’s pretty easy to play defense behind that. We did what we had to do. Offensively I was pretty pleased because O’Bannon threw strikes. It was a pretty good series for us.”
In game one of the series in Cumberland, the Wolverines got the bats out quick and put the game away with a 12-0 victory in four innings. Behind Morrow’s 4.0 hitless innings and nine strikeouts, the Wolverines had 10 hits in the game with three coming off the bat of Luke McKee.
McKee had three RBI in the game as well. Kendall Carden and Morrow had two hits each and Morrow drove a home run out of the yard. In the win. Roberts had a triple in the game as well.
The game was blown open in the third inning after the Wolverines expanded a 5-0 lead out to 10-0 with a five-run frame. O’Bannon had just three batters reach all game so there was no threat at any point.
It was much of the same in game two of the series. This time, the Wolverines actually didn’t score in the first frame, however. EWHS came out in the second and dropped six runs on O’Bannon and added four more in the third and fourth innings respectively to get the 14-0 run-rule win in four innings once again.
O’Bannon had three errors in this game and seven walks that contributed in its defeat. Of the nine hits, Carden and Hastings Gibson had two each to lead the way. Gibson’s two hits were both doubles and McKee added a two-bagger as well. Briceton Johnson, McKee and Gibson all drove in two runs.
Roberts did the work on the mound in this game with his 4.0 innings of no-run, no-hit ball and he had two walks with 10 strikeouts. The wins got the Wolverines to 17-11 on the year and they’ve won nine of the last 11 games since Spring Break.
“I think the number one thing is we’ve figured out our pitching rotation. The guys that have been pitching have been really consistent and that makes everything better,” Hutchison said of the improvement. “Offensively I’ve been very pleased. There’s still work to do, but I think we’re headed in the right direction.”
When this story went to press, the opponent for the second round had not been determined yet as Bruce and Walnut were finishing up their series this week. The second round is slated to begin on Friday with times to be determined as well as home field.
Hutchison isn’t worried as much about the opponent as he is his team continuing to do the little things right at practice.
“We’ve just got to keep getting better. I didn’t feel like we practiced great last week and we have to do a better job practicing,” Hutchison said. “Baseball is a crazy game and on every level of baseball on any given night someone beats someone they’re not supposed to beat. Focus on doing your job and everything else will fall into place.”
