NEW BLOOMFIELD -- The St. Elizabeth Hornets feel like they’re finally getting in a routine.
After playing just seven games in the first four weeks of the baseball season, St. Elizabeth capped its busiest week of the season Saturday with a two-game sweep at Haley Field, blanking the Lone Jack Mules 12-0 in five innings and defeating the New Bloomfield Wildcats 8-5.
The Hornets, who dropped from No. 1 to No. 6 in last week’s Class 1 state rankings, won four of their five games since this past Monday.
“It felt good to play a full week and not have any rainouts,” St. Elizabeth coach Caleb Heckemeyer said. “It’s good to be playing in decent weather.”
Lone Jack opened Saturday’s tripleheader with a 9-5 win against New Bloomfield.
St. Elizabeth opened its game against Lone Jack with three singles, then forced in those three runners with two hit batters and one walk.
The Hornets tacked on four more runs in the second inning, highlighted by a two-run single from Gavin Williams, to build a 7-0 lead.
“That game started off on the right foot to get us going,” Heckemeyer said. “That got us some run support for our freshman pitcher.”
But Williams didn’t look like a freshman on the mound. Making his first start of the spring, he pitched a two-hit shutout, striking out six against the Mules.
“He was in command today, he had all his pitches working,” Heckemeyer said. “The defense was helping behind him when the other team put the ball in play.”
St. Elizabeth finished off the run-rule victory with five more runs in the fifth. Isaac Green had an RBI double, then scored on Jace Kesel’s sacrifice fly to left field.
Williams helped himself out again with an RBI single and Blake Wobbe followed with a two-run double to left field.
“For us to come in, throw out No. 4 pitcher, shut them out and put 10-plus runs on the scoreboard to start our day off was pretty successful,” Heckemeyer said.
Williams had two hits and three RBI to lead the St. Elizabeth offense, while Green had a pair of hits. Kesel and Wobbe each had two RBI.
It was a similar start to the last game of the day for the Hornets, who took the lead in the first inning against New Bloomfield on an RBI double down the left-field line by Brock Lucas. A two-out error scored Lucas as well to give St. Elizabeth a 2-0 advantage.
New Bloomfield starting pitcher Michael Saleny settled down after that, responding with three scoreless innings to keep it a two-run game.
“He came out here today and threw his best ballgame of the spring,” New Bloomfield coach Justin Forsythe said. “He was sharp today and he kept them off track against a really powerful offensive team.”
The Wildcats had a runner reach scoring position in each of the first four innings, including loading the bases in the top of the fourth. But St. Elizabeth pitcher Caleb Oligschlaeger stranded them all, getting a strikeout to end three of the first four innings.
“For the last two-and-a-half weeks, we have not had that big two-out hit with people on base,” Forsythe said. “We’ve had plenty of opportunities to get that, and that has been our key weakness lately.”
New Bloomfield’s Trevor Jordan scored on an error with two outs in the fifth to close the gap to 2-1. Oligschlaeger reached his pitch-count limit through five innings, walking four and striking out nine.
His offense made sure he would remain in line for the win, scoring six runs in the bottom of the fifth.
“That was big, because I knew (New Bloomfield) was going to battle all the way to the end, which they did,” Heckemeyer said. “Getting those insurance runs was key.”
Kesel, Williams, Nick Heckemeyer and Oligschaleger all had RBI singles in the fifth. Noah Chipman, another of St. Elizabeth’s 10 freshmen on the roster, added a two-run single.
Chipman finished the day with three singles, two RBI and two runs scored from the No. 9 spot for the Hornets.
“He made his second and third starts of the year,” Caleb Heckemeyer said. “His first one was against Willard, and he didn’t look comfortable, so I gave him some more time on JV. He got his reps and started seeing the ball a little better, so I thought he deserved another chance on varsity, and he showed today why he deserved a spot.”
Michael Leason made the most of his final two at-bats of the day against St. Elizabeth relief pitcher Nick Heckemeyer. With the wind blowing toward the outfield, Leason lifted a two-run home run to left field in the sixth, then hit an RBI double to left in the seventh to make the score 8-4.
“He put some good swings on it and found his groove there late,” Forsythe said of Leason, who batted 3-for-4 with three RBI. “He put us in a position to score some more runs.”
The next batter, Matthew Shikles, blooped a single into shallow center field for his second hit of the game to score another run for New Bloomfield, but Lucas quickly threw the ball home to Kesel, who tagged out a runner attempting to score from second base to end the game.
Nick Heckemeyer joined Chipman with a pair of singles for the Hornets.
In the first game of the day, New Bloomfield responded to a four-run deficit by scoring five runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 5-4 lead against Lone Jack (14-4).
However, down to their final three outs, the Mules rallied for five runs in the top of the seventh to win.
“We just got some unlucky breaks in the seventh,” Forsythe said. “That opened things up and made that game look worse than it actually was.”
St. Elizabeth (8-4) and New Bloomfield (7-5) both begin this week with road games. The Hornets play Monday at Belle, while the Wildcats play Tuesday at Calvary Lutheran.