Haven deals Trojans first loss
Face it, the Trojan baseball team has it pretty easy this season.
Until Tuesday's doubleheader, the Marion Warriors have been the only team that has come within three runs of Hillsboro.
That was in the second game of the season for both teams, one which Hillsboro barely escaped, 4-2.
Cold weather waylaid the Trojans' April 2 meeting with Lyons and the Canton-Galva Eagles never posed a threat for the Trojans Friday.
Tuesday's game in Hillsboro against the Haven Wildcats brought about a type of test that the Trojans have yet to take.
Hillsboro showed how good it was in the opener, passing it 10-0 behind Jerod Metcalf's one-hitter through five innings.
Anybody wanting proof that the Trojans are vulnerable needed only to watch Tuesday's nightcap.
The Wildcats took a 5-0 lead in the top of the second inning and the Trojans never recovered, dropping their first game of the season, 10-3.
The ceiling came down on Wildcat starting pitcher Matt Meyer in the opener with Hillsboro ripping off a pair of runs to go up, 2-0.
Hillsboro kept pouring salt in the Wildcats' wounds in every inning, taking a 3-0 lead on a fielder's choice in the bottom of the second.
Layne Frick made it a 4-0 game with a sacrifice fly, and Andy Brubacher drove in an RBI single to cap off a four-hit, three-run second inning.
Meyer got some mercy in the bottom of the third after Brubacher's two-run single knocked Meyer out.
Up 7-0 and threatening to make it a short game, Metcalf put the Trojans up 8-0 before Ronn Coates went deep for a two-run blast.
Hillsboro ended the game in five, holding Haven to three-ups and three-downs.
The team that made the opener look easy must have left the field in the nightcap.
After Dustin Jost singled for the Trojans' first and only hit of the next three innings in the bottom of the first, the flood gates opened up on Hillsboro.
The Wildcats beat up on Frick in the second, getting the bases loaded up on a bean-ball.
Facing the entire Wildcat lineup and then one, Frick gave up a two-out-bases-loaded two-run single which put Hillsboro in an entirely new situation this year.
Other than falling behind 1-0 against Canton-Galva, the Trojans had never trailed against a quality competitor.
That seemed to catch them off guard as even fielding the ball became a chore.
Frick broke up the shutout in the third inning, scoring an RBI on an error-single.
But the Wildcats struck again in the fourth with an RBI double that pushed their lead to 6-1.
Coates again cut the lead to 6-2 in the bottom of the fourth, getting an RBI on another error-single.
Already battered, Frick's day on the mound was complete in the top of the fifth after he surrendered a solo home run.
Coach Phil Oelke then turned to Shawn Hughbanks in relief.
Hughbanks held down the fort for one more inning before it went to pieces for him in the seventh.
After an overthrow to home plate, the Trojans' deficit grew to 10-2 from a pair of RBI singles.
One of the first game's heroes, Metcalf, made a return to the mound in the fatal seventh to attempt to stop the bleeding.
He did, but the damage had been done.
Down to its last three outs, even a bases-loaded with no-outs situation wasn't enough to help Hillsboro.
The Wildcats wiped two bases clean with a double play before Steve Chisholm scored the Trojans' final run on a wild pitch.
The 5-1 Trojans host Smoky Valley Friday before traveling Tuesday to Nickerson.
The Panthers are the team that Oelke expected to challenge Collegiate for the MCAA crown.
Canton-Galva
Taking a 1-0 lead in Friday's finale at Canton-Galva was about the only thing that went the Eagles way.
Chisholm homered twice and drove in a game-high six RBIs as the Trojans crushed the Eagles in the opener, 23-8.
Brubacher went 3 for 4, driving in five RBIs and James Bina was 2 for 4 with four RBIs.
Metcalf picked up the victory in early game, giving up just two hits while fanning six Eagles.
After a scoreless first inning, Hillsboro got on track in the second to roll to another 19-5 landslide.
Bina repeated Chisholm's first game performance with two homers, only scoring eight RBIs on a 4 for 5 night.
Brubacher and Kris Jones each drove in three runs, and Jost and Graham Ratzlaff scored two a piece.
Jost picked up the win, firing another two hitter and punching out nine.
