NEN pulls out a victory over South Holt

By Morgan Guyer

The Northeast Nodaway baseball team beat South Holt 4-3 on April 19 in walk-off fashion.

The bases were loaded when Bluejay senior Auston Pride stepped to the plate. The game was tied 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning, with just one out. Six pitches later, Pride had worked a walk, and Ben Boswell trotted down the third base line to score the game-winning run.

It wasn’t the most exciting walk-off, but the Bluejays will take it as they move to 10-0 on the season.

Northeast Nodaway started the game slowly on offense, going hitless through three innings and scoreless through five. South Holt took a 3-0 lead into the sixth inning when the Bluejay bats finally got going. They would score two runs in the sixth to grab all the momentum into the seventh. Bluejay Head Coach Vance Proffitt was happy with the comeback.

“I thought we extended counts really well toward the end and kind of got the pitch count up on their starter. We finally kept the ball down out of the air,” Proffitt said. “We put a little rally together in those last couple innings, something we didn’t do at all before that.”

Pride went 2-3 with a single and double alongside his game-winning walk, while also pitching five innings and striking out five batters. Lane Dack would finish 2-3 as well with two singles, and Dylan McIntyre would come on in relief, pitching the final two innings, giving up just one hit and zero runs.

Proffitt was happy with how his two pitchers dueled.

“Dylan has a lot of movement, and he throws pretty hard,” Proffitt said. “He threw strikes, and if Dylan throws strikes, he’s tough to hit.”

The Bluejays now turn their attention to East Atchison on April 23. Proffitt still sees some improvements that need to be made for his undefeated ball club.

“Defensively we’ve got to get better. I think we had some brain lapses in certain situations,” Proffitt said. “Especially with an older team with a bunch of seniors, we can’t have some of those silly mistakes.”