Irish Battle At Home And On The Road

This past week was a busy week for the legion baseball teams. Tuesday Crofton visited the Irish and the Juniors started the night with Austin Hilker on the mound. He had the Crofton hitters baffled for the first four innings and Tyson Hostert came into the game to relieve Austin in the fifth after two runs had scored. He allowed only one more run keeping Crofton to only three runs. Meanwhile the offense scratched out only six hits and could only get one run across the plate despite having six runners in scoring position on the base paths. The timely hits were just not there on this night.

The Seniors ran into a similar situation starting Luke Loecker on the mound who allowed only five hits and two earned runs. The Senior bats cranked out the same number of hits as Crofton but could not plate a run. Overall these were two of the better games the Irish have played but came up short on the final score in a very exciting night. 

Friday the Irish teams traveled to Ainsworth. The Juniors came out swinging scoring two runs in each of the first three innings while holding Ainsworth scoreless. The defense held up for the final two innings making the final score 6-2. Tony Castro started on the mound and Zack Haburchak finished the final three innings. Jon Marvin was perfect at the plate going one for one and two walks. Along with Jon, newcomer Wyatt Liewer went two for three, scoring twice for the offense.

The Irish Seniors fell behind Ainsworth early due to errors but battled back to take the lead in the fifth. Unfortunately a couple of critical errors allowed two Ainsworth runs to cross the plate in the bottom of the fifth and the offense could not get anything going in the final two innings. The result was a 6-7 loss. 

Saturday saw both teams repeat the games from Tuesday with Crofton. The Juniors started the day with the bats hot leading 6-3 after three innings. Crofton came back to lead 6-11 but the Irish bats woke up again the final two innings to close the gap to 10-11 but could not plate the tying run despite leaving two men on base in the final inning. The Irish Juniors pounded out 13 hits verses Crofton's six hits and left nine men in scoring position. Wyatt Liewer, Tony Castro and Angel Castro all went three for four.

With only three of the regular Senior players present and the Juniors filling in, the Irish Senior team battled Crofton's Seniors well, falling behind only by four until the sixth when Crofton plated five runs. The Irish offense only could score one making the final 1-10. The Juniors who played got valuable experience that will help in the future despite the loss. 

Sunday both teams played Pender in Creighton's Berrypepper days tournament. The Juniors started by scoring three in the top of the first with a walk of Walker Liewer and consecutive hits by Zack Haburchak, Wyatt Liewer, and Drew Young. After that they could not string consecutive hits together for the rest of the game, only scoring one more run. Pender plated eight runs making the score 4-8. Again the Irish had the same number of hits as Pender but came out on the short end of the score. 

The Irish Seniors played a very stout Pender team in the second game of the day after Pender shutout Creighton on Saturday. The Seniors knocked seven hits but only could cross the plate one time. Shea Lueninghoener lead the offense going two for three at the plate.  Meanwhile Pender's 10 hits, including a three run homer, resulted in 12 runs stopping the game after six innings. 

This week the Irish Juniors traveled to Bloomfield for a double header on Tuesday and then both teams traveled to Wayne on Thursday.