Baseball continues successful start in Newport Elks Tournament

Kiel Messinger, Staff Writer 

Baseball was victorious in their third straight game with a convincing 5-2 win against Estancia. The game took place on Wednesday as part of the Newport Elks tournament.
“It was a collective effort- everyone contributed to the outcome, something that will have to be a common theme this year,” senior Ryan Miller said.
The team took the lead early, with three runs in the first inning.
“I thought we played amazing as a team. We scored in the first inning which gave us momentum throughout the rest of the game,” senior Colt Augustus said.
Augustus played a major role in the victory, with two hits and two runs, continuing his hot start to the season in which he has hit over .400. After obtaining an early lead, it was up to the defense to hold it.
“Our pitchers dominated, they were hitting their spots with all their pitches, which definitely took a lot of pressure off of the offense,” sophomore Alex Qu said.
One of these pitchers was senior Brad Hodges, who came through on the mound, pitching for four and two thirds innings while only allowing two runs. Seniors Jose Rodriguez and Jacob Carroll also contributed scoreless innings.
“We had a really good outing from our starter Brad Hodges. He gave us a really good chance to win and just did his thing on the mound,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez also contributed form the plate, with three hits and three Runs Batted In (RBIs).
“I just spend a lot of time after practice trying to work on my teammates have done a good job to set me up for success to drive them in,” Rodriguez said.
Though the team was successful both offensively and defensively, there is still room for improvement.
“As always, there is always stuff to improve on specifically the little things like communication and hustle… Our goal is to play better each week.” Miller said.
The team hopes that this improvement will help them achieve their season goals.
“Our goals are to hopefully make cif this year after we barely missed out on it last year,” sophomore Noah Sperling said.
The team will try to get on the right path for CIF with their first league game at Northwood on March 1.