Hauser’s Holden Pittman runs to home plate against North Decatur Thursday at Hauser High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
HOPE — The Hauser baseball team didn’t put up a big inning, but they got the job done Thursday night against North Decatur.
The Jets scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth to end the game via the 10-run rule for an 11-1 Mid-Hoosier Conference victory over the Chargers.
Not every player in the Hauser lineup recorded a hit, but they all reached base at least once in the contest. The Jets recorded 15 hits as a team.
“At the plate, I thought our approaches were good,” Hauser coach Nathan Long said. “Tonight, we hit the ball very hard when we did hit it. I thought the whole team had the right mindset at the plate tonight.”
The Jets (5-2, 3-0) picked up two early runs in the first when Stryker Gill doubled and scored on a Zayne McCanlis single. A North Decatur fielding error plated the second run to put Hauser ahead 2-0.
After the Chargers responded with a run in the top of the third, the Jets extended their lead in the bottom half of the inning when Holden Pittman hit an RBI-double, and an Owen McIntyre single gave them a 4-1 lead.
Hauser tacked on four more runs in the fifth when Kameron Blair hit an RBI-single, and Gill smacked a double to left field to score another run. North Decatur also committed an error and a wild pitch in the inning to help the Jets out and give them an 8-1 lead.
Blair ended the game when he drove in the third run of the sixth with a single.
McIntyre earned the win for the Jets, going six innings and allowing no earned runs on four hits and striking out 11 batters.
“He was able to mix two pitches really well, and at times, he had three pitches,” Long said. “He controlled the strike zone, which controls the game. When you can do that, pitch to contact and get some strikeouts along the way, he does a really good job for us.”
For the Jets, Pittman went 3 for 3 with a double, Blair was 3 for 4 with two RBIs, Simeon Wasil went 3 for 4 and Gill was 2 for 3 with two doubles. Nathan Worland and R.J. Foster each had two RBIs.
The only blemish Hauser had was committing four errors.
“They‘ve got to learn by experience out there,” Long said. “As far as cleaning it up, we do basic stuff throughout the week, and we’ll go back to the basics next week and the end of this week and see what we can do.”
