It was a good week for the East Webster Wolverines on the baseball diamond as they were able to beat the weather and bring home a three-win week.
EWHS outscored two teams 41-2 in three games in a dominant showing. A two-game sweep with two perfect games against Kemper County in Class 2A, Region 4 highlighted the effort.
“I was proud of them. It’s easy to not take those games serious,” coach Blake Hutchison said. “I was really proud of our pitchers for throwing perfect games and you can’t do that without throwing strikes. When we got pitches to hit, we hit well and sometimes it’s good to have games like that.”
To start the week, the wolverines went to French Camp Academy and handled the Panthers 12-2 in just five innings. A six-run fifth did the biggest damage as the team limited FCA to just two hits in the win.
EWHS got out to a 6-1 lead in the first two innings to get comfortably in front and then poured it on in the fifth to get the run rule. Of the nine hits, Kouper Shook led the way with a 3-for-3 evening including hitting a double. Briceton Johnson had two hits and a double with three RBI and Kaleb Warnock had a double and two runs driven in during the game. Cade Morrow and Jordan Gaskin each walked twice.
Gaskin also pitched in the game and went 4.1 innings, gave up just two hits, two runs, and had four walks with two strikeouts to get the win. Warnock got the last two outs of the game retiring both batters he faced.
The two wins against Kemper County highlighted the hitting as well, but the pitchers faced the minimum batters in just three innings with two perfect games. Carson Norwood started it on Tuesday when he retired all nine batters he faced and the Wolverines had a 19-0 blowout.
Gaskin had two hits to lead the team and two RBI. Judd Azlin had two RBI in the win also.
In game two, EWHS scored 17 runs in the second inning in a 20-0 affair that also lasted just three innings. Chris White started the game at pitcher and struck out eight of the nine batters he faced. Shook had his second multi-hit game of the week with two base knocks in the game. Gaskin had three RBI while Shook, Warnock and Annon Boykin drove in two RBI each.
At 13-8 and now 5-1 in Region 4, the Wolverines now control their own destiny. The team is set up for the series of the year taking on a Eupora team that also controls its own destiny as they meet this week with the winner possibly winning the district crown.
A series sweep for either team will earn them the No. 1 seed but if they split and Choctaw County sweeps Nanih Waiya, the Chargers will win it. Hutchison is guarding against looking ahead in both games and wants his team to focus on both of them individually. If they take care of their own business, they’ll have a district title.
“It’s just one game at a time. They know what’s at stake,” Hutchison said. “They knew that when Eupora beat Choctaw that put everything in our hands and hopefully we handle that. Hopefully we don’t look ahead. We can’t worry about that. We’ve got to worry about (Tuesday). If we play well, we have a chance to win. If we go out and throw strikes, hit and play defense, we can beat anybody.
“They’re a dangerous team and I knew that coming in because they return a lot of experience from last year. Their top hitters are really good and they’ve got some good arms that can give us trouble. I like our chances but we’ve got to play clean baseball.”
