Mount Pulaski baseball starts the week off with two wins

[April 26, 2017]  The Mount Pulaski Hilltoppers returned home this week to Bob Gasaway Field and quickly picked up two wins.

Monday, Springfield Lutheran/Calvary

On Monday afternoon the Hilltoppers handed Springfield Lutheran/Calvary a 12-2 loss in six innings.

Mount Pulaski had an 11-2 lead going into the bottom of the sixth inning when sophomore Ben Fricke hit a bomb to left field that flew out over the fence in rather quick fashion. Fricke's home run allowed the fans to pick up their lawn chairs early and go home on the ten-run rule.

The home run by Fricke was the first of his career and his dad, Nathan, quickly jumped out of his lawn chair to retrieve the ball from the cornfield beyond the left field fence.

Fricke had two hits in the ballgame and two RBIs.

The catcher also scored three runs for the Hilltoppers, no courtesy runner needed here.

Freshman Joey Davis also had two hits for Mount Pulaski and he drove in one run. Fellow freshman, Todd Kelly, had a triple, driving in three runs. Logan DeRight also had a single and drove in two runs. Jonathan Shehorn had the other hit for Mount Pulaski.

The Hilltoppers offense was fired up early, as the boys scored two runs in the first inning and three more in the second inning.

Freshman Todd Kelly earned his first varsity win of his high school career with a 7-1 victory over Hartsburg Emden. The freshman only allowed three hits and struck out five batters. At the plate he helped his own cause by going 2-for-3 with three RBIs. On the base path he swiped three bases for the Hilltoppers.

A six-run fourth inning by Mount Pulaski blew the game wide open as DeRight was shutting the Crusaders down on the mound with an 11-0 lead heading into the top of the fifth inning.

Springfield managed to extend the game by scoring two runs off DeRight in the fifth inning. DeRight ended his night’s work by allowing just three hits, two runs, two walks and striking out two batters. Logan DeRight picked up his second win of the season for Mount Pulaski.

Tuesday, Hartsburg-Emden

On Tuesday afternoon Mount Pulaski hosted Logan County rivals Hartsburg-Emden.

Hartem struck first with a run in the top of the first inning as Zach Phillips reached on an error and took second on a bad throw. Phillips would score on a hit by Alec Hayes that also involved another Hilltopper error. Hartem held the 1-0 lead until the bottom of the second inning.

Ben Fricke walked and stole second in that inning for Mount Pulaski and he would eventually score on an RBI single by Todd Kelly. Mount Pulaski took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third inning on an RBI single by Logan DeRight that scored Jonathan Shehorn.

The Hilltoppers extended the lead to 7-1 after a five-run fifth inning. Shehorn walked in the inning and he came home to score after Tanner Farris smashed a double. Farris would come around to score on a fielder’s choice by Fricke. Kelly then drove in two more runs with a triple down the right field line and he would also score on a bad throw by Hartem.

Hartem senior Alec Hayes had a solid performance on the mound, striking out 13 Hilltopper batters. A few errors from the Hartem defense attributed to some runs for Mount Pulaski.

On the mound Kelly shut down the Stags the rest of the game. Kelly only allowed the one run, which was unearned, and three hits. He struck out five Hartem batters in earning the victory for Mount Pulaski.

Kelly helped his own cause at the plate by going 2-for-3 with three RBIs. The freshman also stole three bases to lead Mount Pulaski.

Eli Olson, DeRight and Farris had the other hits for Mount Pulaski off Hartem starter Alec Hayes.

Mount Pulaski Coach Joel Washko was pleased to see his team add two more wins this week to their record. "I think we had lost five in a row, so it was good to get back on track,” said Washko. "Yesterday was a good win and today we did what we needed to do to get a win. It wasn’t real pretty.”

Washko put freshman Todd Kelly on the mound and Kelly earned his first varsity win of his career.

"Todd threw great for us which really took a lot of pressure off our offense. Defensively we had a couple errors that were uncharacteristic so hopefully we can clean those up. At the plate we were able to put a couple good innings together today,” Coach Washko said.

A five-run fifth inning broke the game open for Mount Pulaski. "That was a big inning,” said Washko. "We needed it. Offensively we were really struggling early. We didn’t do a very good job of putting the ball in play against that kid (Hartem’s starting pitcher Alec Hayes). I think he struck out 13 kids and there is no reason for us to strike out 13 times. We’ve got to do a better job of putting the ball in play. That one inning was huge offensively and we put some runners in motion. We had a couple hit and runs that worked out well for us. We did what we needed to do.”

Mount Pulaski runners stole five bases in the game. On the flip side Mount Pulaski catcher Ben Fricke gunned down three Stags on the base path.

Sophomore Tanner Farris is now leading the Hilltoppers with a .347 batting average. Ben Fricke and Logan DeRight are tied for a team second-best batting average of .327. Fricke leads the team with 14 RBIs.

Freshman Todd Kelly has turned it up a notch lately at the plate and added some points to his average to bring it up to .267. His recent triples with runners on base have increased his RBI total to 12 runs batted in, just trailing Fricke in that category.

Eli Olson and Joey Davis are both batting .261 for Mount Pulaski. Fricke and DeRight have the only two home runs for the Hilltoppers.

Farris leads the team with 10 stolen bases. =

Mount Pulaski improved their record to 4-12 on the season.

Meanwhile Hartem is 0-11 and still searching for that first win of the season.

Both teams are similar in their youth with Hartem having only two seniors and one junior on the team. Mount Pulaski has just two seniors on their team. The rest of the rosters for both teams are freshmen and sophomores all gaining valuable experience at the varsity level.

Given the heavy rain forecast for the rest of the week this might be all of the baseball action local teams see for the week. Stay tuned.

[Teena Lowery]