Baseball loses to Hopkins in Sections
Park falls 11-1
May 30, 2019
Before going into the game against Hopkins, sophomore Sam Hunt said he felt pressured for the team to play well after earning the second seed for the first time.
“I think we were a little tight coming out just because we have never been the second seed before. We felt like we had to play up to it and I don’t think we really played our best game,” Hunt said. “We tried our best. Talking and definitely trying to pick each other up helped.”
Freshman Kristofer Hokenson said he wished the team had cleaned up its errors and put in more attention earlier in the game.
“We were tight through the whole game. We just made some errors and they got some hits that we couldn’t do anything about,” Hokenson said. “We should have been more focused on the game and how we could get better throughout the game. (Kelly) got up on us a little bit so we got more focused.”
According to coach Brian Kelly, the team experienced a few major errors that could have been avoided.
“We made about four errors defensively which was tough, I thought we could have been a little bit looser. We took some really good hits at bat, they just had a really good pitcher,” Kelly said. “There wasn’t really a lot of strength today.”
According to Hokenson, it was hard to be put in during the middle of the game, and as time went on he made a few errors the other team was able to hit off of.
“(Pitching) was tough because it was the second and third inning. It’s hard mentally to come in with a low amount of outs,” Hokenson said. “I did pretty good but I struggled at the end (when) they found some hits in the gaps.”
Kelly said the game started off badly when Hopkins was able to get two runs in the first inning.
“I think they were a little tight, they jumped on us right away and got two runs in the top of the first and we definitely didn’t play our top game today,” Kelly said.
According to Hunt, even though the game didn’t go the way they wanted to, the team fought its way through.
“We didn’t really play our best game today, their bats were on, they found holes (and) they executed in the right positions,” Hunt said. “We just couldn’t get the job done today. We knew it wasn’t our best game but we were still going to battle until the end.”
Kelly said the team is preparing to come back strong in its next game.
“We have (pitcher) Anthony Odens ready for an elimination game (May 30) and Sam Hunt ready to go,” Kelly said. “We get to come back in two days and play a game right away, so we are looking forward to that.”
According to Hunt, the players need to move on from this game and go into the next game with their heads up and fix the mistakes.
“(We have to) take it one game at a time, prepare like we always prepare and keep the same approach. Not executing in the field, definitely, our bats were shaky, we just weren’t taking it like we usually do, our pitchers need to execute a little bit better,” Hunt said. “Definitely talking, you have to approach it like every other game.”
The next game will be 6:30 p.m. May 30 at Hopkins High School against Southwest.
