After an 0-5 start to the season, the Blair High School baseball team picked up its third-straight win April 3 at Fontenelle Park in Omaha.
The 9-3 road win against the Omaha North Vikings afforded the Bears a chance to reach 5-5 overall with games Thursday and Friday against Ralston and Omaha Northwest.
“It's huge,” senior Tanner Jacobson said. “Going into the conference tournament next week .500 would be great.”
BHS was scheduled to start Eastern Midlands Conference bracket play Monday against Bennington, but it first had to deal with four games in five days.
“We started a little rough, but we knew we had it,” Jacobson said April 3, referencing the Bears' winless start. “We just had to string some together and can, hopefully, stay hot the next two days.”
At 3-5 after their win against North, the Bears went onto beat the Rams and crush the Huskies, finishing the week 4-0 and 5-5 overall.
Coach John Roan's team failed to score a run during the first, second and third innings Thursday against Ralston, but ultimately scored 11 during the fourth, fifth and sixth frames to secure an 11-2 home win at Vets Field. Dylan Swanson, Brady Brown and Nate Wachter notched two hits apiece, while Jacobson, J'Shawn Unger, Wachter, Lucas Matejka and Owen Mann plated runs.
Wachter scored the Bears' go-head run on a wild pitch during the fourth inning before Unger started the seven-run fifth frame with an RBI single.
Matejka threw a complete game from the mound, totaling nine strikeouts and just two hits allowed.
The next night back at Vets Field, BHS produced a 14-run inning and beat Northwest in five frames, 21-1. After Blaine Rosenbaum pitched a scoreless top of the first inning against the Huskies, the Bears scored six runs during the bottom half Friday. Brown hit an RBI triple and Unger hit into a run-scoring error, while both Rosenbaum and Jacobson notched two-run singles.
Jake Gaskill, Carter Saylor and Wachter added RBI swings from there, too, as Blair produced its fourth win in five days by a wide margin.
Blair tops Vikings
Needing to preserve their pitching staff for two more games Thursday and Friday, Jacobson and his catcher, Gaskill, worked together for seven innings to beat Omaha North by six runs April 3.
The right-handed hurler threw the complete game, striking out just one, but allowing just two earned runs during the 9-3 victory.
“You've got to be really efficient in your innings,” Jacobson said, describing what it took to stay out on the mound for Coach Roan's team. “That's not a lot of balls, and putting balls in play so the defense can work.”
The pitcher's performance was a collaborative one with Gaskill.
“We noticed they kept picking up on our fastball, so we kept changing it up and throwing more off-speed (pitches),” the catcher said. “It helped us a lot, and gave Tanner the best opportunity to get ahead on this team.”
Blair's work in the batter's box helped, too. The Bears scored three first-inning runs and never trailed, finishing the game with nine hits.
“When was started hunting for fastballs, we started getting on base,” Gaskill said. “Scoring runs is what we needed.”
Brown and Unger scored two runs apiece, while Jacobson, Swanson, Wachter, Matejka and Rosebaum scored the others. Unger led the team in RBIs with two, while Gaskill had one on a 1-for-1 outing with two walks.
Jacobson, Brown, Wachter and Rosenbaum plated runs, too, as the Bears picked up their third win of the season.
BLAIR BASEBALL LINE SCORES
Friday
Blair 21, Omaha Northwest 1, 5 inn.
ONW (3-9) 0 0 0 1 0 — 1
BHS (5-5) 6 14 0 1 X — 21
Thursday
Blair 11, Ralston 2
RHS (1-11) 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 — 2 2 3
BHS (4-5) 0 0 0 3 7 1 X — 11 9 3
April 3
Blair 9, Omaha North 3
BHS (3-5) 3 0 0 2 2 1 1 — 9 9 2
ON (5-8) 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 — 3 8 3
