No. 7 Norwell Beats Homestead 9-7 

By Ben Grossberg

Fort Wayne – No. 7 Norwell traveled to take on Northeast Hoosier Conference foe Homestead on Thursday. Senior Josh VanMeter took the mound for the Norwell Knights and Junior Joe Ault was on the bump for the Homestead Spartans. VanMeter sat 87-89 with his fastball and Ault was 83-85, touching 86 a few times.

The Knights jumped out to an early lead scoring two runs in the top of the first. VanMeter singled to left to start the inning and Senior Nate Shelton reached on an error that allowed him and VanMeter to get to second and third. Senior Tailur Szaresnki drove in the first run with a sac fly to right. After a strikeout Senior Austin Dettmer singled in Shelton giving Norwell a 2-0 lead.

Homestead answered in the bottom of the first. Junior Kyle Moushenzadeh doubled to start the innings and moved to third on a passed ball. Junior Tyler Zimske brought him in on a groundball.

In the third Norwell opened the game up a bit with a three run inning. Ault got the first batter of the inning out, but gave up a single and a catcher’s interference with two strikes proved to be costly. With two runners on Ault struck out the next batter then allowed a walk to load the bases. Senior Luke Hunter delivered a two out, two RBI single to right. On the throw home, to get the second runner, the ball got by the catcher and Norwell scored a third run giving them a 5-1 lead.

Both teams got big offensive output in the sixth inning, Norwell started the top half scoring four runs.  With two out and two runners on VanMeter stepped up to the plate a drove a pitch deep over the right center field fence for a three run homer. Norwell wasn’t done though, Shelton doubled after that and Szarenski doubled him in giving Norwell a 9-1 lead.

Homestead did not fold though and responded with six runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. Pinch hitter Junior Ryan Stephens drove in the first run of the inning with a bases loaded one out RBI single. The Spartans would get another run on a wild pitch and then Senior Josh Thompson had a RBI of his own for the third run. Junior McLean Trieglaff stepped up next and after going down 0-2 on the first two pitches he drove a fastball deep over the centerfield wall for a three run homerun cutting the deficit to 9-7. Hunter would relive VanMeter on the mound and get the next two batters out.

In the bottom of the seventh Hunter made quick work of the Spartans getting the first two batters to hit into out and striking out the final batter of the game to save the 9-7 win.