Bulldogs break out the big sticks, cruise past Breese Central 9-5
Breese Central collected the first runs of the day but after the first inning, the Highland bats got busy, erupting for six runs in the second and third frames en route to a 9-5 victory in their home opener March 25.
The day was undoubtedly enjoyable for Highland (1-1), which managed just four hits March 21 in a loss to O’Fallon.
Against the Cougars, Highland exploded for 11 hits. Chase Wilson led the attack with three safeties, while Jack Korte and Ryan Hacke had two hits each.
“Chase Wilson had a couple of big hits and Ryan Hacke had a two-out hit late and guys just put the ball in play a lot better tonight, and if you’re going to win you’re going to need games like that,” Highland coach Joel Hawkins said.
Breese Central (4-3) struck first in the opening frame on a two-run homer by starting pitcher Kyle Athmer. Highland cut the lead to one on a run-scoring single by Carter Wiegman in the bottom of the inning. The Bulldogs added three more runs in the bottom of the second to take a 4-2 lead.
Ross Spies then led off the bottom of the third with a booming homer, his second round tripper in two games.
“I just lay back, wait for my pitch, and swing hard,” Spies said. “I think we played pretty well after that.”
“He’s a big boy and he packs a big punch and when he hits them they go,” Hawkins said. “That was a big blow for us and there were a couple of big shots in there.”
Later in the inning, Hacke singled and went to second on a groundout. Wilson then singled in Hacke and the Bulldogs plated their final run of the frame on an RBI-hit, pushing the lead to 7-2.
The Cougars chased Highland starter Grifin Frahm in the top of the fourth with three runs. Cameron Wempe’s run-scoring hit capped Breese Central’s rally and trimmed the lead to 7-5.
Highland responded with runs in the fifth and sixth innings, pushing its edge to 9-5.
That gave Bulldogs righthander Tyler Werner plenty of cushion as he pitched around trouble in the fifth and went 3 2/3 innings for the win.
“I was just trying to go out there and throw strikes for the team and they were really backing me up,” Werner said. “They (Central) had a few good hits that got down but other than that, they did a really good job backing me up. I was just working my fastball on the outside corner quite a bit and was getting my slider to work toward that last inning.”
“What Tyler did today was a big deal to just get us to get us to tomorrow,” Hawkins said.
UP NEXT FOR BULLDOGS
Highland is back in action at 3:30 p.m. today (March 26) at home against Wheaton Warrenville-South.
“We got one tonight and tomorrow night we’ll see a really good program come in here,” Hawkins said.
This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 9:51 AM.