The Fort Calhoun baseball team played its first game as a top-10 ballclub Tuesday and lost.
The Pioneers, ranked No. 10 in Class C by the Omaha World-Herald after a 2-1 start, surrendered seven fifth-inning runs to Twin River and lost at home, 11-2. Coach Roy Prauner's team is 2-2 overall after the nine-run defeat.
“We're in-between right now. We don't know who we are,” he said. “But, once we find out who we are, we're going to be a pretty decent little baseball team, which I'm excited about.”
FCHS scored first Tuesday during the second inning when Carter Christensen plated pinch-runner Blake Welchert by sacrifice. Welchert made his way around the bags after catcher Chase Premer's one-out single.
Two Twin River runs later, senior Austin Welchert evened the score with an RBI during the bottom of the third frame. The Pioneer batter watched as Avery Quinlan bunted Jordan Back to third base, stepped up to the plate and put the ball in play to score his team's base runner.
From there, though, it was all Titans. The visitors went scoreless during the fourth inning, but scored seven runs in the fifth and two more in the seventh to win comfortably. Prauner said uncertainty cost his team when Twin River went on its rally in the fifth.
“I just think that we have to build confidence in those situations and we're sporadic in that confidence right now,” he explained.
With some young players in the lineup and on the mound, it's a circumstance Prauner saw coming before the spring season even began.
“I think it's going to continue to be, possibly, a growing pain of ours,” he said. “But, at some point, we're going to overcome it. And once we overcome it, we're going to be fine.”
Even just four games in, the Pioneers' coach has witnessed his team deal with and execute through adversity.
“Even today we got out of some jams,” Prauner said.
For example, Fort Calhoun third baseman Sam Genoways earned force outs multiple times throwing the ball to Premer at the plate. It just didn't happen frequently enough as Twin River left town with a victory, propelled by the home team's miscues.
“We just can't let the wheels fall off when that one play happens,” Prauner said. His squad was scheduled to play Arlington on Thursday and next hosts Omaha Gross today at 5 p.m.
The Pioneers also host Omaha Concordia on Saturday at noon.
FCHS BASEBALL LINE SCORE
Tuesday
Twin River 11, No. 10 Fort Calhoun 2
TR (2-2) 0 0 2 0 7 0 2 — 11
FCHS (2-2) 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 — 2
