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| Newsome senior Trey Cruz worked four innings to earn the win as the Wolves topped nearby rival Bloomingdale, 8-2. |
By Jarrett Guthrie
LITHIA – Newsome needed a good baseball inning after falling behind a pair of runs to neighborhood rival Bloomingdale early on Friday. The fourth started with a gifted, two-base error, but it was the Wolves aggressive offense that followed that saw the home team turn the order over and plate five runs as Newsome won handily 8-2.
After being held hitless through the first three innings, Newsome (14-6) found its offensive pop coming up with ten hits – half of them doubles – in a pair of multi-run innings to claim the non-district win.
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| Trey Cruz and Newsome first base coach Carlos Somellian hi-five after Cruz’ RBI single in the Wolves five-run fourth inning. |
In the five-run fourth, the two-base error was followed by a hit batter and a bunt single by Auston Spires to load the bases, but the Wolves first run came courtesy of starting pitcher Trey Cruz, who placed an RBI line drive into right field. Then the gates opened and Newsome flowed through. The Wolves added a second run to tie the game on a wild pitch, before Tyler Rohrberg put his team ahead finding a gap in left field for a two-run double. Kelsen Johnson singled in the fifth run to add a cushion before Bloomingdale could stop the bleeding.
“There was a lot of team energy in the dugout before that inning,” Johnson said. “We were excited for each other and things really just built on each other. Each hit, the next guy was just excited.”
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Cruz did his job on the mound working four innings, allowing two runs on six hits and earning the win.
“This game is always a fun because I’ve been playing with and against a lot of those (Bloomingdale) guys since I was eight years old,” the senior, Cruz said. “It’s always a good time, especially when you beat them.”
The Wolves salted the win away with a three run sixth, as Johnson doubled, scored on a Zach Benson (2-4, double) RBI single, and followed by a Cade Afeld single and a two-run double by Tyler McKenna.
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| Bloomingdale sophomore Brock Wilken had an RBI single and a walk. |
Bloomingdale (14-7) scored in the third inning on a Bryce Hazzard (2-for-3) single, and in the fourth on a Brock Wilken single, but couldn’t do any further damage.
A lot of that had to do with an excellent relief appearance from Tom Carpenter, who picked up the three-inning save, allowing just two base runners (walk and hit batter), and striking out two in his shutout outing.
“Tom is probably one of our best pitchers … he has this calm mentality to him when he pitches,” Johnson said. “Even when he makes a mistake or two, he knows how to calm himself, throw strikes and bounce back and he did that tonight.”
The win is Newsome’s fifth in the last six games, and improves the Wolves – already the top seed in the upcoming Class 9A-District 8 tournament – to 14-6 on the year, but picking up the late-season win against a nearby rival made things a little extra sweet.
“It’s a huge rivalry at every sport for us, football, basketball – everybody is there,” Rohrberg said. “It’s always fun anytime we play, there was so much energy in the dugout and in the crowd, it was just a fun game to play.”
