Central Showdown Success

JV takes the win over Central baseball

The unfortunate April weather that has already caused so many rain-outs this spring season was not the only storm that had been brewingthe bullpen of the JV baseball team was buzzing with energy as they prepared to face off against their arch rivals, Howell Central, on the eve of April 6.

“A lot of pressure was resting on our shoulders for this game. Central killed us last year. We lost eight games, and four were against Central, so there was a lot of pressure to not let that happen again,”  sophomore Ryan Olwig said.

“We usually do pretty well. Because Central is one of our biggest rivals, there was a lot of pressure to destroy them. We’d planned to hit up the middle and get at least 21 outs per game,” sophomore Ryan Coval said.

With strong pitching from the Howell Central Spartans, the Vikings knew to work on strong, and accurate, hitting despite their lack of practice-time.

“One of their pitchers throws ridiculously hard and accurate. We knew we needed to step up our batting if we wanted to win. We also didn’t have a lot of field practice because of the rain,  so we needed to give it our all and not hold back,” sophomore Levi Masloski said.

In the wake of the two rain-out games, the two matches occurred April 6 in an odd turn of events. Winning the first game with an 18-2 lead, the Vikings had accomplished what they had been preparing for, but then fell 10-9 against the Spartans later that evening.

“I expected the guys to come out, play hard, and win. There couldn’t be any slacking if we planned to win, especially during that game. I wanted to be able to help as best as I could and put forth my best effort, and I expected my team to do the same,” Olwig said.