Park boys baseball took on Hopkins at home in sections May 28. Park and Hopkins kept trading runs back and forth with Hopkins eventually winning 5-6. However, Park still has another chance in sections as the tournament is double elimination.
Assistant coach Reece Truboga said the team did well not giving up early and fought back, but got too comfortable and could not finish out the game.
“They put up a three spot in the top of the first, and we showed some resiliency by putting up a two spot followed by three, so we had a 5-3 lead,” Truboga said. “We got a little complacent, though. But again, we showed we faced some adversity.”
Junior Malik Martin said next game the team is going to try and concentrate on not letting off the gas and focusing on making contact.
“Just like we did in this game, (we want to) handle the ball well, keep finding barrels and just kind of hope for better results,” Martin said. “Keeping the energy and momentum up, keeping them out and going, starting early and just keeping it going through the whole game (is what we need to do).”
Senior Zach Nevinski said the team needs to get more runs on the board if they want to make it farther into sections.
“We’re going to try and get more runs across next time; we had a few chances we didn’t finish,” Nevinski said. “We had runners in scoring positions there. As we look back now, those two runs could have been helpful to win the game, but that’s the way it goes. We just have to try to capitalize on every single thing.”
Truboga said the team needs to work on their approach all around — on the mound and at the plate.
“If we walk less guys, we’re giving up bases 390 feet. Again, we’re not super quick to the plate right now. They’re stealing some bases from us,” Truboga said. “We have to do better at bats. It seemed like we fell asleep a little bit at the beginning. We had five runs in the second inning, and we still had five runs in the seventh inning. Somewhere in the middle there, we got to put a few hits together.”
Nevinski said the pitching kept them in the game, praising Alex Hokenson and his job on the mound.
“Shout out to Alex Hokanson for going 115 pitches, putting us in position to win great pitches,” Nevinski said. “He was shooting strikes for us, and that’s all you can ask from your starting pitcher.”
Park baseball’s next game is against Edina at 11 a.m June 1 at Braemar.
