Brett King
For The New Era
The Sweet Home High School baseball team ended its season with two wins against the Junction City Tigers.
The Huskies took over the game against the visiting Tigers Tuesday, May 7, bursting out to an early lead of 8-0 at the bottom of the second inning.
After the second inning, though, Sweet Home seemed to have left its solid defensive play behind, allowing the Tigers to sneak nine runs in.
The good news is the Huskies continued to keep their offensive production up, despite the rough defensive play, and took the game 14-9.
JT Weld led the Huskies on their road to victory with 4 runs. Following behind Weld was Colton Holly with 3 runs.
“We had an all-around good game,” Head Coach Matt Matuszak said, “And our pitching came out really good.”
The Huskies faced the Tigers again Friday, May 10, this time at Junction City, and finished their season off with a 6-3 win.
Unlike the first game, the score stayed low throughout the game.
Weld crossed home plate three times to lead Sweet Home in scoring.
Pitcher Kory Van Deusen set the school Earned Run Total record with an overall season ERA of 1.20 and school league ERA record of 0.70.
“He’s been a project,” Matuszak started about Van Deusen, “He is one of those players that were really overlooked by everyone. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to play this year, but we convinced him. He worked really hard and he came out on top. His story is one I’ll be telling the rest of my life.”
The season ended for the Huskies without moving on to state due to what Matuszak called a “a snowball effect” of problems that started with a rash of injuries.
The team began to fill in the spots of the injured players with the younger kids.
“Once we actually got the young ones in,” Matuszak said, “we noticed they were doing really well at filling in those spots, but by the time we got everything put together, it was too late in the season to move up.”
The talent of the teams in the league overall had Matuszak surprised.
Junction City 002 320 2 – 9 11 2
Sweet Home 172 013 x – 14 14 2
Sweet Home 002 010 3 – 6 10 3
Junction City 000 200 1 – 3 3 3