GREENVILLE—Greenville defeated the Milton-Union Bulldogs 8-3 in a non-conference varsity boys’ baseball game at Sater Heights Park.
“We played Troy last night, who throws in the mid-80s to the high-80s, and you come in the next morning, and you’re looking at a guy that throws 65,” said Greenville coach Adam Eberwein. “It’s tough to adjust to that right away, but the positive is we kept swinging the bat, we kept putting the ball in play, and eventually we had some good hard hits.”
Greenville took an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first with Titus Eberwein reaching by a hit batsman, an Owen Mcgreevey single, and a two-run double to left off the bat of Braeden Wills.
The Bulldogs dented the board in the top of the third to trail 2-1 with Greenville answering in the bottom of the inning with a Mcgreevey double and a Colton Oswalt run-scoring single to center for a 3-1 score.
The Green Wave broke the game open with a five-run fifth inning starting with a leadoff Adam Edwards single, back-to-back hit batsman including Eberwein’s second in as many appearances, and a Wills two-run single to center.
“When you have runners in scoring position you have to have that timely hit,” said Eberwein, “and we did that today.”
Cole Oswalt singled and McGreevey scored on a Bulldogs error for a 6-1 score. Bryce Blumenstock followed with an RBI single to right with no outs bringing a pitching change from the Milton bench. Charlie Jasenski sent a run-scoring single to left to close out the fifth with Greenville leading 8-1.
Milton-Union answered with a two-out, two-run single in the top of the sixth to trail 8-3, which was the final score of the game.
The Wave played well committing a single error on the night.
“We’re still battling some execution here and there,” said Eberwein. “If we can get those little things dialed in we’re a pretty good baseball team.”
Layne Hocker pitched 5.2 innings for the win allowing 1 earned run on four hits, six walks, and 10 strikeouts. Trevor Mardin tossed 1.1 innings of relief ball with no earned runs, no walks and one strikeout.
“Lane Hocker hasn’t thrown for a little while,” Coach Eberwein stated. “He was ready to be on the mound. He struggled a little bit at the beginning of the game. Tough to adjust to the strike zone right away but he battled through that and then went five full innings and did a nice job.”
Wills paced the Wave at the plate, going 2-3, including a double, 4 RBI, and a run scored. Mcgreevey was 2-3 with a double and three runs; Oswalt went 2-3 with an RBI and a run; Jasenski was 2-3 with an RBI; Edwards was 1-4 with a run; Blumenstock went 1-2 with an RBI, and Eberwein had 2 Runs and 2 hit batsman.
BOX SCORE
123 456 7 R H E
001 002 0 3 6 2 Milton-Union
201 050 X 8 10 1 Greenville
