Valley Speeds Past Warsaw In Baseball OpenerAfter taking a 3-1 lead after two innings, visiting Tippecanoe Valley scored five times in the third and added three more runs in the fourth to cruise to an 11-4 win at Warsaw in the baseball season opener for both teams Wednesday evening. Valley took advantage of Warsaw’s pitching miscues in the first half of the game; five Vikings were hit by pitches in the first three innings, and two others drew walks. While the visitors didn’t get an extra-base hit in the game, they were able to steal bases seemingly at will, take two bases on hits to the outfield and pressure the Tiger infielders into three errors in the game. In the decisive third inning, Valley scores its five runs on two hits, two walks, two hit batsmen, and two tiger errors. Overall, Valley scored nine of its 11 runs after two were out in the inning. “Our asset is our legs; we’ve got a fast team,” Valley head coach Justin Branock said. “When we get walks, hopefully this year we can turn them into doubles and things like that by stealing second. “I try to tell our guys ‘keep the ball out of the air; we’re not a team that’s going to hit many home runs, so let’s hit the ball on the ground and beat out some infield hits. We took advantage of the walks and our two-out hitting was on tonight; we executed with two outs and got a lot of our runs that way.” Meanwhile, Valley senior left-hander and Northern Illinois recruit Eric Hammer, returning from arm issues last season, was effective for the most part. He gave up three singles and a run in the first inning, but nothing more in an intentionally shortened outing. I told him our plan coming into this was that he was going to throw 70 pitches, no matter if we were up or down. When we got a big lead we ended up switching it to 60, and we took him out when he got that. Branock said Hammer has altered his routine to help insure the arm problems remain in the past. “He’s made adjustments in his routine in the bullpen, and things like that to make himself better. He gets the ball down in the strike zone. He had a great game today and I expect that from him all the time,” the coach said. Branock plans to use the Vikings depth in pitching quite a bit this season. “We’ve got arms, and that’s always a good thing to have in high school baseball,’ he said. “So I’m confident when (Luke) Helton and Hammer aren’t on the mound, we’re still going to win a lot of games.“ In the Tiger dugout, head coach Michael Hepler said his team, which is younger than most, struggled to get out of its own way Tuesday. “We were our own worst enemy today,” he said. “I felt like we started every inning for them. I think we had 12 walks and hit batters combined. You can’t defend those, and so we put ourselves in such a bad position that it only took a seeing-eye ground ball or a little flare and the next thing you know, they’re putting five runs on the board. “There’s not really much to say; we just didn’t play very well tonight.” Warsaw (0-1) travels to Huntington North for a game today. Valley (1-0) will host Bremen in its home opener at 11 a.m. Saturday. TIPPECANOE VALLEY 11, WARSAW 4 TV 215 300 0 – 11 9 3 W 100 120 0 – 4 6 3 Valley – Hammer (W, 3.2 IP, 3H, 2R, 2ER, 2BB, 4K), Craig (3.1 IP, 2H, 2R, 1ER, 3BB, 2K) Warsaw – Lenon (L. 2.2IP, 3H, 7R, 2ER, 1BB, 0K), Kerschner (0.1 IP, 2H, 3R, 3ER, 3BB, 0K), Jones (4IP, 4H, 1R, 1ER, 3BB, 3K) 2B – Hay (W) Records: Valley 1-0, Warsaw 0-1
