FREMONT – The Little Giant baseball team didn’t get much offense in five of its seven innings Wednesday against Oak Harbor.
Fortunately for the Little Giants, the offense came up big in the other two.
Ross scored eight runs in the bottom of the second inning and six more in the sixth to put the game away for a 14-8 victory in a game that was closer than the final score indicated.
Noah Hotz
“(Oak Harbor) make a push-back and it’s a two-run game and I’m sitting there, starting to get nervous,” Ross coach Jared King said. “I thought Oak Harbor, in all reality, probably outplayed us for four of five innings. We got the two big innings. Our kids toughed it out, made plays when we needed to and came away with a win, but I thought Oak Harbor played a nice game.”
The Rockets scored the game’s first run in the top of the second inning, but the Little Giants answered in a big way.
With the bases loaded, Noah Hotz hit a three-RBI double. Karson Wojdyla followed later in the inning with a two-RBI base hit.
Ross looked as though it was set to cruise to the win, but Oak Harbor chipped away at the deficit, including a four-run fourth. The Rockets climbed back to within two, 8-6, midway through the sixth inning.
The Little Giants loaded the bases in the sixth, scoring two runs with walks before Caleb Bennison, like Hotz in the second inning, belted a shot to deep center field for a three-run double. Hotz followed two batters later and hit his second RBI-double of the game, scoring Bennison for a 14-6 lead.
Yet, again, Oak Harbor didn’t go away. The Rockets worked a couple walks and loaded the bases, prompting Ross to insert top pitcher Trey Ickes to put the game away.
“The thing with the weather we’ve had this spring is, now that we’re playing every day you have to turn to a bunch of guys who haven’t necessarily been on the mound as much,” King said. “That’s exactly what we did today. I thought Caleb Bennison came out, did a nice job for a few innings, I thought he started to lose the zone so we went to Luke (O’Brien). Luke did a great job for a couple innings, then he started to lose the zone. In that situation, when you’re up that many runs, you just need to throw strikes. You can’t afford to give up any free bases, that’s when they find the holes.”
Caleb Bennison
Ross finished with 11 hits, but all but two of those hits came in the Little Giants’ two big innings. Hotz, Bennison, Cole Druckenmiller and Garrett Schneider each totaled two hits with Bennison and Hotz each driving in four RBIs.
“I thought our approaches got a little lethargic after that second inning,” King said. “You put up eight and then I think they got complacent. You try and tell them ‘Keep at it, keep at it, keep at it,’ but high school kids are high school kids sometimes.
“I look back at the beginning of the year when we weren’t hitting well, I thought our guys lacked a lot of confidence,” King added. “But over the last couple weeks, I think we’ve had a lot better approaches at the plate and I think we’ve been stringing together hits more often, especially with guys in scoring position.”
The Little Giants improve to 6-11 overall. Ross travels to Marion Harding Thursday.
2024-25 Girls Varsity Basketball Players
| # | Name | Height | Position | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jasmin Heidelburg | 5'7" | Guard | 12 |
| 2 | Charity Crowe | 5'8" | Guard | 09 |
| 4 | Karina Hensinger | 5'2" | Guard | 10 |
| 5 | Bella Baptista | 5'6" | Guard | 11 |
| 10 | Maylin DeWalt | 5'6" | Guard | 12 |
| 11 | Shaniyah McDuffy | 5'0" | Guard | 10 |
| 15 | Camilia Sanchez | 5'11" | Center/Forward | 10 |
| 23 | Ava Stallard | 5'7" | Guard | 11 |
| 24 | Lanae' Tucker | 5'8" | Center/Forward | 12 |
| 32 | Lyndi Wolf | 6'2" | Forward | 12 |
| 44 | Ava Jones | 5'10" | Forward | 10 |