Malcolm baseball sweeps week’s action

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When two teams are as familiar with each other as Malcolm and Valparaiso are, you never know what might happen. While the two towns share players in a co-op for high school baseball, they have separate summer programs. When they face off, the games are always competitive.

The first time around — on May 28 — Malcolm escaped with a 2-0 win in a pitchers’ duel. When they met for Malcolm’s home opener on June 20, it took some last inning heroics for Malcolm to escape with an 8-7 win.

With two outs and two on in the top of the seventh inning and Malcolm leading 8-6, Ethan Boyd ripped a line drive to the right-center field fence that brought Mitch Albrecht around to score. Attempting to score from first, Lucas Buresh was thrown out at the plate on a game-ending relay from Colt Reiling to Maclain Beach to Gavan Dunse.

“I wasn’t sure the throw would be in time,” Malcolm head coach Brandon Rieschick said. “But Colt hit his cut. Maclain threw a laser and Gavan did a great job securing the ball and dropping the tag.”

It was the culmination of a back-and-forth game that saw a combined 31 hits between the two teams.

Malcolm got on the board first when Beach drove in Reiling who had singled to open the inning. Valparaiso answered in the top of the second when Josh Masek homered.

Malcolm took advantage of five hits in the bottom of the second to take a three-run lead before a two-run home run from Albrecht in the fourth and three-run sixth inning put Valparaiso on top briefly. Malcolm answered with three runs in the bottom of the sixth.

“I was pleased with how the guys responded after losing the lead,” Rieschick said.  “We’re starting to mature and realize that being behind isn’t the end of the world and that it’s still a seven-inning game.”

The Malcolm juniors had a tough day as Valparaiso avenged a loss by getting a 4-2 win in the early game.

Colby DenHartog kept the Malcolm hitters off-balance all afternoon while scattering six singles and using his breaking ball to strike out 10 batters.

“Colby mixed in his off-speed pitches well and lived down in the zone,” Rieschick said. “He never got predictable.”

The Malcolm teams earned a pair of juniors-seniors doubleheader sweeps earlier in the week. Malcolm traveled to Adams on June 15 and picked up two run-rule victories. The seniors won 9-1 as Reiling went 2-for-3 with two runs batted in while Brett Thieman struck out seven.

In the juniors game, Tyler Thieman got the win with four solid innings on the mound while Hayden Frank went 2-for 3 with a triple while driving in four runs in the 13-4 win.

The next night, Malcolm traveled to Beaver Crossing and swept the Badgers with the seniors getting another 9-1 run-rule win. Connor Zegar went 3-for-4 with a double while Beach threw 6 1/3 innings and struck out five.

Brayden Boehle dominated on the mound in the juniors game as he improved his record to 4-0 in an impressive 10-1 win where he struck out seven Utica-Beaver Crossing batters.

“It was nice to get some quality innings out of our pitchers during the midweek games,” Rieschick said. “Brett and Maclain in the seniors games and Tyler and Brayden in the juniors games really set us up well to have plenty of arms available for the weekend.”

The Malcolm seniors are 9-4 and the juniors are 9-2. Both teams were scheduled to play at North Bend Tuesday before the juniors host Shelby-Osceola-Stromsburg Wednesday, June 23. The juniors will compete in a tournament in Crete this weekend.