Manchester Baseball Team Opens With Win Over Wawasee
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Anthony Gadson-agadson@timesuniononline.com
SYRACUSE - The Wawasee and Manchester defenses played the April Fool's jokes on their respective pitchers Thursday in Syracuse.
In a high school baseball game in which only two of the nine runs scored were earned, the Manchester Squires (1-0) picked up the 5-4 victory over the Warriors (1-1), leaving Wawasee coach John Blunk perplexed."Night and day," Blunk repeated over and over, referring to praise he had given his defense two days earlier in a 5-1 victory.
On the day, Wawasee committed five errors to Manchester's three, but then again, it was the Squires' season-opening game, so mistakes were kind of expected.
"I was pretty happy with what I saw tonight," Manchester coach Jack Rupley said. "We did a pretty good job of making the routine play. We botched a couple, but I was kind of expecting that."
Rupley was also expecting a strong start out of junior pitcher Scott Baker, which he also received.
Despite giving up four runs in four innings, none of Bakers's runs were earned and he did strike out five, while giving up three hits.
Despite the strong start, Rupley still pulled Baker at the end fourth for precautionary reasons.
"He was at 82 pitches, and I was like, 'Hey, that's enough.'" Rupley said. "I'm not going to try to hurt anyone early in the year. It's too long of a season. The thought going in was getting four innings out of Scott, but maybe not that many pitches. He survived OK."
Rupley pulled Baker in favor of sophomore Connor McLaughlin, who walked the bases loaded before getting the last two outs of the fifth inning on a pop out and a strikeout.
"He calmed down and found himself a little bit," Rupley said of McLaughlin.
The sophomore did calm done, picking up the win, striking out six in his three innings of work and giving Blunk just one more pitcher to worry about over the next few years.
"We have to cut down our strikeouts," Blunk said of his team, which struck out a total of 11 times. "We did face two good pitchers. I did know Scott was going to pitch well, but I didn't know about (McLaughlin). Now I know about him, so now I have to face him the next two years."
Blunk may not have been aware of Manchester's No. 8 hitter either, as sophomore Payton Sorg went 2 for 3 with a two-run double.
"He just put the bat on the ball," Blunk said. "We couldn't get him out, and he hurt us."
Sorg is one of Rupley's less-experienced players, as he only returns seniors Brady Miller, Dylin Kennedy, juniors Devan Knecht, Baker and McLaughlin from last year's team that swept through the Three Rivers Conference and finished 14-10-1 after a 5-21 season in 2008.
"Between Dylin, Brady and Devan - Connor and Scott - they got a taste of that and they're kind of pushing the other kids to get some more of it," Rupley said of the winning his players experienced a year ago.
"We have a new first baseman, a new second baseman, a new shortstop and a new outfielder," he added. "We have some inexperience, so we're going to need grow a little bit."
Manchester doesn't get its next test until April 13 at Taylor, while Wawasee also takes some time off before hosting Fairfield April 10 at 12:30 p.m.
