The Boys Varsity Baseball team started the section tournament with a bang on Saturday May 24, putting up a convincing 11-0 win at home against Edison High School. Senior captain Josh Johnson started the game and pitched five scoreless innings before being relieved by freshman Emerson Egly. A bases-clearing double in the first inning by freshman catcher Riley Bowman put the Spartans on the scoreboard early, and they extended their lead to 8-0 by the end of the second. Three more runs in the third put the finishing touches on the game.

Although the scoreboard from the Edison game might indicate otherwise, hitting is the team’s major concern heading into the sectional tournament. “Defensively we were solid all the way through, [and] our pitching couldn’t have been better, but we weren’t hitting the ball as well as we could have,” senior captain Nick Hoffman said after the game. “We can’t make any mental mistakes and we need to be batting more than .400 for the rest of sections.”

Egly agrees that hitting poses a major challenge. “Our pitching from Josh and Harrisen has been really good this year. Most of the time we’ve hit and fielded well, but at times we’ve been shaky in those two things. If we do hit and field well, we are a tough team to beat.”