Hastings Tigers Baseball opens their season with Seven Games in two Weeks

On March 16, 2023, the Hastings Tigers baseball team was set to open their spring season with a home game against Norris high school.

However, the weather had other plans, so the actual first game was on March 21 last Tuesday. They played against the rival, Grand Island, who lives 30 minutes away from Hastings. 

Grand Island is a combined team of all the high schools, GI Central Catholic, GI Northwest, and GI Senior High. With all the schools combining, and becoming one of many co-op teams in Nebraska, they are a class A team. 

The game started at 4:30 in the afternoon, but it did not end until 8:45 at night.

Senior Daeton Espino started pitching, and with him Calub Clark catching. He pitched through the first three innings, and then sophomore Eli Schnider came in. Schnider got the final two outs of the inning.

After Eli, two other pitchers came in. Sophomore Ashton Hawes was the next pitcher who came in during the top of the sixth inning. The last pitcher of the night for the Tigers was junior Joe Hoffman. He came in during the top of the ninth inning. In the scorebook Hoffman got the win under his belt.  

The game went 13 innings long. The Tigers and Islanders almost doubled the games they played in one night. A normal high school game lasts seven innings.  

Even though the game lasted 13 innings, it ended in a thriller. To start the bottom of the 13th inning, Clark was up to bat, and he ended up being walked with only one out on the scoreboard. Then the top of the lineup was up, it was starting short-stop, junior Naz Robinson. He grounded out to short-stop, but he moved the base runner to second base. With two outs, up comes starting second baseman, senior Cameron Brumbaugh. He was intentionally walked by the Grand Island coaches. Then starting center fielder, senior Evan Rust was up to bat, and he also was walked, with only five pitches. 

Bases were loaded and there were two outs. Up came starting third baseman, senior Elijah Johnson. His first pitch was a looking strike, then the next one was a foul ball. With two strikes he knows he needs to hit this next pitch.

The very next pitch he hit a line drive over the shortstops head to score the winning run. The whole team ran over to first base where Johnson was, and were jumping on him and celebrating as they won their season opener. 

The Tigers then took the field again on Thursday, March 23. This was an away game in Beatrice, at Christensen Field.

Game time was at 4:30, and sophomore Chance Vertin started pitching for the Tigers. In the top of the first inning, it looked like the Tigers were going to light a fire with Robinson getting hit by a pitch. Brumbaugh comes up and continues what Robinson started. He hit a ground ball and reached on error, ending with Robinson on third and Brumbaugh on second. 

Robinson then scores on a wild pitch, and Brumbaugh on a ground ball hit by Rust. The fire continues to grow with Johnson up to bat by getting a single. Then Espino hits a grounder to short-stop to get the second out of the inning, advancing Johnson to second base. The inning ends on Vertin striking out swinging. 

The top of the first inning was good for the Tigers, but in the bottom Beatrice opened the game up.

Beatrice timed up Vertin and scored seven runs in the first inning. The game kept going on and the Tigers never scored again but the Beatrice Minutemen scored 11 more runs. 

The game ended in the fifth inning, and the Tigers got a run for the second game of their season. 

The next game for the Tigers was Friday the 24th, against Skutt Catholic. It was just the second home game of the season, and it did not go as the Tigers hoped it would. 

Junior Nolan Hyde was pitching, and Skutt started off with two runs in the first inning. The Tigers could not match it by getting three outs with the first four batters. The innings kept going back and forth but in the top of the third inning Skutt scored eight runs.

The Tigers could not catch up to the nine runs that Skutt scored. The final score was 5-9 and the Tigers got their second loss of the season. 

Then the following Saturday, the 25, the Tigers headed down to Genoa to play against Twin Rivers. 

Twin Rivers was another fast game that lasted only five innings because of the run rule baseball has. The run rule is when a team is up by ten runs in the fifth inning. 

In the first inning the Tigers scored five runs and in the following innings they scored six, four, three and three. The final score was 21-1. 

Next week means more games. Tigers vs. Central City. That is a big game because last year the Tigers played them in a district game. 

This game was scheduled to play on Monday, March 27, but it started to snow and the game had to be postponed because of safety concerns. The postponed game moved to Thursday in the same week. 

The game started in the third inning and they were tied 2-2. This game also went back and forth the whole game. When Central City would score two, the Tigers would match it, or score more. It was also the other way, where if Hastings scored they would match it.

This game also went into extra innings, but in the ninth inning the Tigers started something. It started with Rust hitting a line drive to the pitcher, the ball bounced off his glove, and they could not get the throw off in time. Then Johnson was up and he bunted and got on base by an error by their third basemen. Then the Central City coaches decided to walk Vertin and the bases were loaded. 

Up to bat next, with no outs, was Espino. His first two pitches were balls, but on the third pitch he hit a hard ground ball down the third base line to score Rust to win the game.

This is the second game for the Tigers to win off of a walkoff. 

After that game taking place on Thursday their next game is on Friday the 31 against Ralston. The starting pitcher is Hyde. 

In the first inning there was a combined score of five runs. Ralston scored one in the top of the first, but the Tigers scored four.

Then again in the second inning the Tigers scored six more runs to make the score 10-1. Then in the third inning Ralston scored one more run, and that was the last run they scored.

The Tigers needed to score two runs for the game to be over because of the run rule, and they got the two runs, and the game was over.

It was another five inning game for the Tigers. 

The next game they played was April 1, at Blair. 

The original game time was at 11:00 but the temperature was below freezing so it changed to 1:00. The team had to leave Hastings High parking lot at 8:00 just to get there in time to warm up. This one game was an all day event because the team did not get back until 5:30.

The game however, only lasted six innings because of the run rule.

Blair got going early, and the Tigers could not match it. In the fourth inning Espino reached on an error. The pitcher tried to pick him off but there was another error, and he was then at second. Then the Blair pitcher threw a wild pitch and Espino was on third. Landon Hinrichs got a base hit to score Espino for the Tigers first run. 

Their next run was Johnson. He singled on a ground ball to the shortstop. Then Vertin was up to bat and he was hit by a pitch. Then Espino was up to bat and hit a line drive to center field to score Johnson. That was the final run that Hastings scored. 

The Tigers record is 4-3. In this upcoming week they have four games. On Monday it is a home game against Platteview, Tuesday is an away game against Seward, Thursday is a home game against Norris, and Saturday is an away game against Lincoln Northwest.