SYRACUSE — It was chilly and windy, but by this spring season’s standards, the weather for Monday’s high school baseball game in Syracuse was ideal. Opening their Northern Lakes Conference seasons, the Warsaw Tigers (1-2, 1-0 NLC) and Wawasee Warriors (0-4, 0-1 NLC) dodged the rain clouds, as the visitors won 6-0. “It was a great team effort,” Warsaw coach Mike Hepler said. “ (Senior pitcher) Forde Ness did an outstanding job pitching and throwing strikes, keeping us in the game. We pushed across three runs in the first two innings, then scratched a few more out. Our guys did a good job of putting the ball in play.” Ness got the win, going five innings and allowing just one hit before passing the ball over to junior Tanner Balazs to start the sixth. After getting the initial Wawasee batter out, Balazs ran into trouble, walking junior Austin Yoder, then surrendering a double to sophomore Nate Prescott before walking sophomore Drew Anderson. With the bases loaded, Hepler went to his bullpen, calling upon junior Justin Oberlin, who quickly struck out senior Isaac Rigdon looking, then got senior leadoff batter Derrick Sorensen to groundout. “(It’s) 4-0, sixth inning with bases loaded and one out and we bring a couple seniors to the plate, but it just didn’t come through,” Wawasee coach Eric Screeton said. “Those are the moments you have to learn from, get better and hopefully next time we come through. Anything that happens there changes the game, I feel like.” After his squad plated two more runs in the top of the seventh, Oberlin came back out for the seventh, striking out two more batters looking before ending the game on a groundout. “He’s got that great mentality that a closer has, which is tough, nasty and isn’t going to give in and keep coming after you,” Hepler said of Oberlin, who struck out three of the five batters he faced. “That’s the way he pitches. I love him in that role for our team.” The win is Warsaw’s first, and was much needed according to its skipper. “It’s only one win, but it’s a nice win,” Hepler said. “It’s our first and we needed that to kind of boost for our confidence.” As with every other spring sport, the weather has wreaked havoc on baseball, as three of Warsaw’s first four games were either cancelled or postponed, not counting its cancelled scrimmage against DeKalb. With rain and cold limiting practice time, instead of wasting Saturday, when the Tigers’ game at Crown Point was cancelled, Hepler opted to hold a practice. “We practiced in the snow Saturday,” he said. “We were going to get better. We were going to get tougher and it showed today.” Following that frigid practice, Warsaw opened the Wawasee game with back-to-back singles, tallying 11 total hits in the game, including a 3-for-4 effort from sophomore Tyler LaFollette, who scored one run and drove in another. “He’s a quality kid,” Hepler said. “That’s why he’s playing. He can provide offense and is good defensively.” Senior Josh Frantz was also 3 for 4 with a double, a stolen base and a run scored, while senior leadoff hitter Jason Ferguson was 2 for 4 with two RBIs, a stolen base and a run scored. Warsaw may have gotten its offense going early, but Screeton’s squad managed just two hits in the shutout. “We’re still a work in progress,” he said. “You can see it out there a little bit. We do some things well at times, then it seems to leave us at other times. Some things I talked to the guys about today were the way they took the field. We need to have more effort and energy. There’s no excuse for that. I still don’t think we’re handling that well. We’re not coming out here with our hair on fire and ready to compete on every pitch.” Warsaw is scheduled to take the field again today, traveling to Tippecanoe Valley for a makeup game that was supposed to take place on April 10. “It’s always competitive when we play them,” Hepler said about facing Valley today. “We need to keep our energy going.” The way this season has gone, and with rain in the forecast, there’s no guarantee that even the makeup game will be made up today. “If we get to play all 28 of our games, we’d play them in 40 days,” Hepler said of the condensed schedule due to postponed games. “It’s pretty amazing how fast and furious they’re going to come. Fortunately, we have nine pitchers, so we can do a lot with that, but our guys need to be ready.” And Screeton can agree. “We still haven’t been outside and getting into that routine of practicing,” he said. The Warriors will be off today, but host Elkhart Memorial Wednesday for another NLC contest at 5 p.m.
