Cornhuskers’ surge leaves them sitting pretty

June 17, 2014 · 0 Comments

Eric Mcloughin makes a nice defensive play at second and fires the ball to first for an out in a loss to the Ivy Leafs on Sunday.

By Jeff Doner
Due to a five-game win streak that stretched from the end of May and into June, Nobleton Cornhuskers senior men’s baseball team currently sit in a playoff position at the mid-point of the 2014 season.
With a 5 -6-2 record, the Cornuskers sit seventh overall and within striking distance of fourth place.
Despite their strong play as of late, the Cornhuskers were unable to make any ground last week, losing 7-3 to Lisle, tying Clearview 8 -8 and losing 8 -0 to Ivy at home on Sunday.
“I think we have just been falling apart a bit in key areas, like defence with little errors,” said Kevin Winters, who is stringing together an impressive season for the Cornhuskers. “I think the bats are swinging ok and it’ll all come around eventually. We’re sitting near the top of the standings, so we’ve just got to work in minimizing those errors, getting runners on base and capitalizing when we can.”
However, the Clearview game was one the Cornhuskers let slip away. Sitting side by side in the standings, the Cornhuskers gave up a late lead and allowed the Orioles to end the game in a tie.
Wanting to regroup, they came back home to the Nobleton Sports Park on Sunday for a tilt with the formidable Ivy Leafs.
Ivy got out to an early lead, tagging Nobleton’s starting pitcher, Jake Friskney, with six runs by the end of the third inning.
The defence made some nice plays on the field to support Friskney, but the pitcher received no run support from the bats throughout.
“Yeah, I think Ivy’s pitching was definitely the biggest factor in today’s game,” Winters said post-game. “He definitely pitched a good game and had all his stuff going. He shut us out until later in the game when we finally got a hit off him.”
As the game wound down, the Cornhuskers started getting men on base, but had trouble cashing them in.
The dependable Eric Mcloughin was put in to relieve Friskney in the fifth inning, but the Ivy bats went after him as well.
Mcloughin surrounded a solo home run in the top of the fifth, but limited the damage by stranding runners in the final three innings only allowing two runs in the 8-0 loss.
“I tried to do what I could, but they have pretty good bats, I just tried to maintain where we were in the game there,” he said.
It wasn’t the best week overall for the Cornhuskers, but the team is confident they can bounce back against the Midland Indians on Thursday and then for a pair of weekend games on Saturday and Sunday at the Nobleton Sports Park.
Mcloughin said confidence is still running high for a team that sees itself on the upswing, but that good solid starts from the pitching staff will be the key to getting back into the race.
“We’ve added some bats this year, so we’ve definitely got a lot better hitters and we have cleaned it up in the infield this year,” he said. “We’re hoping to keep it going. We’re still in the playoffs as of right now, so hopefully we can maintain that spot around six, seven or eight and get our first playoff berth this year.”
For Cornhuskers schedules, stats and standings, visit www.ndbl.ca.