For Wawasee High School’s varsity baseball team, the outcome of Wednesday’s game at Warsaw was as beautiful as the weather. Playing under a beautiful blue sky on a perfect day for some action on the diamond, the Warriors got a solid pitching performance from junior Lucas Garza and used a 10-run sixth inning to beat the host Tigers 14-1. Warsaw put two runners on base in the bottom of the sixth inning but couldn’t extend the game and got run-ruled by its conference and county rival. With the win, Wawasee snapped a six-game losing streak and improved to 7-7 overall and 2-6 in the Northern Lakes Conference. The Warriors, whose only other NLC win this year is an 8-2 victory over Warsaw, swept the season series against the Tigers for the first time since 1997. “We needed it,” Wawasee coach Brent Doty said of the win. “After last year, starting 0-7 in the conference and 1-6 this year, it drains on you. We went 4-3 at the end of it last year. We need to turn that around. You never know what can happen in the NLC ... we can’t lose anymore. We gotta build for next year as well. I’m not saying we’re giving up on the NLC this year, because we’re gonna give everybody a dogfight, but it’s big for us. It’s one win, but we needed it after we were struggling a little bit.” The Tigers fell to 5-10 overall and 3-5 in the NLC. Warsaw coach Mike Hepler respectfully declined comment after the game. Garza worked 5-1/3 innings on the mound, giving up four hits, two walks and one run. He struck out two Warsaw batters. Senior Sam Rookstool replaced Garza and gave up just one hit. “If we put all three phases together and are solid ... just solid, we don’t have perfect, just solid ... defensively, on the mound and offensively, getting some timely hits, we can be dangerous,” said Doty. “When we lose one of those, get a poor pitching performance, bad defense or don’t get timely hitting, then we can’t play with teams that are equal to or better than us. “We just gotta get all three phases together, and that’s what happened tonight,” continued Doty. “We got a great pitching performance by Lucas Garza, can’t say enough. We got solid defense and some timely hitting.” The Warriors pounded out 11 hits in the win, eight of which came off Warsaw starter Zach Witt. Witt was charged with the loss after giving up eight hits, four runs and two walks in 4-2/3 innings on the mound. Blake Foreman, Justin Kerschner, Kenton Cornell and Marselo Rodriguez all came on in relief. The Tigers’ five pitchers combined to walk nine Wawasee batters. Seven of those walks were issued in the sixth inning, when the Warriors scored 10 runs on just three hits. There was also a hit batsmen and a Warsaw error in the inning. Garza was 3 for 3 at the plate for Wawasee, while teammates Drew Anderson, Gage Reinhard and Brett Carson had two hits each. Anderson and Garza hit doubles for Wawasee, while Brad Christenberry and Tyler LaFollette did so for the Tigers, who scored their only run in the fifth inning to cut the deficit to 4-1. Ryan Marshall led Warsaw’s offense with two hits. The Warriors plated their first run in the third inning, and then added one in the fourth and two more in the fifth before exploding in the sixth. When the two teams met earlier this season in Syracuse, the Warriors scored four runs in the sixth inning en route to the 8-2 win. Wawasee is in action again Friday at NLC foe Elkhart Memorial. The Tigers host Huntington North tonight.
