SYRACUSE - Wawasee baseball coach John Blunk said the success of his team this year will not be measured on the output of one or two players. It will be a different player each game.

Well, Rod Holterman and Rob Burke are doing their best to set the pace in Wawasee's 5-2 win over East Noble Monday.

Holterman, the Warriors' big left-hander, allowed only five hits and had his second straight double-digit strikeout performance with 11 punch outs. Holterman has struck out 25 batters in Wawasee's first two games.

Burke helped provide the offense by going 3-for-4 with a near cycle; a single, double, triple and three RBIs.

"It is going to be a different person every game for our team," Blunk said. "Right now, Holterman is pitching great, and Burke is hitting the ball. Those two are our captains, and they are supposed to lead by example."

East Noble staked itself to a 2-0 lead in the first inning when the Knights' right fielder Nic Monroe crushed a Holterman offering over the left-field fence for a two-run home run. Holterman settled down after that and shut East Noble down in surrendering just three hits.

""He (Holterman) got ahead of almost every batter. The pitch the guy hit for a home run, our catcher Rob Burke, said it was a foot outside and he extended his arms and hit it," Blunk said. "That kid will probably hit more home runs than we will hit as a team. We don't have that kind of power."

The Warriors got the offense on track in the third inning when Burke, Jody VanLue and Holterman all provided RBI singles as Wawasee got the lead 3-2. Burke provided the insurance runs with a two-run triple in the fourth inning for a 5-2 Wawasee advantage.

"We battle back, and we did some little things," Blunk said. "We are not the old' Earl Weaver teams, live and die by the three-run homer. We want to hit doubles and triples and bunt and steal bases. That is what we are going to have to do."

Holterman had two bad innings, the first inning with the home run and the sixth when he walked two straight batters with just one out. Holterman escaped that frame by striking out the next batter and getting a nice catch from Ryan Carrington in left field.

"We found out that we can play a little defense," Blunk said. "East Noble is a good-hitting ball club. They lost a lot from last year. This was the type of game I thought it would be, a low-scoring game. There has been years that we struck out 13 times against them. The last two years we have had good pitching against these guys."

Wawasee got the job done with some of its starters sitting on the bench for a majority of the game, having just come off a spring break vacation.

"It is a little hard after spring break," Blunk said. "I started some guys who normally don't start there. They were a little lackadaisical at the plate, but they played defense and that helped. Hopefully, we will be ready for Columbia City on Friday. They are in our sectional, and that is a measuring stick."

Wawasee (2-0) hosts Columbia City Friday. [[In-content Ad]]