HOPE — For the first 3 1/2 seasons since the Mid-Hoosier Conference has gone to home-and-home round-robin conference games, Hauser baseball had yet to taste defeat in the MHC.
That unbeaten streak came to an end Wednesday. Class A No. 2 Southwestern (Shelby) jumped out to a 9-0 lead after three innings and went on to hand the Jets an 11-3 defeat.
The Spartans (9-3, 7-0) jumped on Hauser starter Eli Miller for six runs in the first inning and two more in the second. Southwestern added a run off Alex Pattingill in the third to make it 9-0.
After that, the Jets (8-5, 5-1) settled down. Pattingill shut the Spartans down in the fourth, and Zayne McCanlis kept them off the board in the fifth and sixth.
“We played better defense after that, and the pitching did get better,” Hauser coach Nate Long said.
The Jets got on the board with two runs in the fifth off Southwestern starter Anick Hartsell. Alex Pattingill was hit by a pitch, stole second and third and came home when the throw to third got away. Bryce Trotter walked, Aaron Rork singled, and after both runners moved up on a throwing error, Kobe Meahl was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Frankie Poole then walked to plate the second run.
The Spartans reached McCanlis for two runs in the seventh. In the bottom of the seventh, Hauser got a two-out double from Rork and an RBI-single from Meahl off Southwestern reliever Jordan Jones.
“We’re not going to give up just because a team has a lead on us,” Long said. “We have to play all seven innings, and we’re going to compete, and if we have to move guys around, we have to move guys around. But we’re going to compete all seven innings.”
Meahl finished 2 for 3, and Rork went 2 for 4 for the Jets, who had five hits as a team.
Hauser now faces a must-win situation today if it has hopes of defending its conference title. The Jets play the Spartans again, this time at Southwestern.
“They’re a good team,” Long said. “We’re going to have to pitch better, and we’re going to have to come out of the gate and put pressure on them.”
