The Raider boys had a rough start to the season with a thumping from Woodbury last week, but they rebounded nicely against North St. Paul winning 12-1 on April 12th.  Two Rivers then came to town on the 14th, and they brought the offense, defeating the Raiders 7-0 despite a solid start by Matt Sherry on the mound.

Against North St. Paul (NSP), Hastings jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. They extended their lead with two more runs in the second and then NSP settled down on the field keeping the Raiders to no runs in the third and fourth. The Polars scored their only run in the top of the fourth and Hastings answered with six more runs in the bottom of the fifth to win 12-1.

Gavin Odman started his second game of the season, and he had a great appearance on the bump allowing one run on three hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.

Offensively for the Raiders, Jack Seleski and Mitch Iliff each had a double. RBIs were produced by Cade Kimmes, Johnny Teigland, Mitch Iliff (4), Tanner Anselment (2), Alex Hendrickson, Jarod Neuville and Evan Nelson who hit a home run.

Against Two Rivers, Hastings struggled to gain any momentum offensively. Hastings had a few big hits scattered throughout the game but could not string anything together to get on the scoreboard.

Defensively, the boys played well, but perfectly placed hits and Two Rivers stringing hits together gave them the 7-0 win on a windy Friday afternoon.

Matt Sherry started on the mound for Hastings pitching four innings allowing five runs with four walks and four strikeouts.

“I thought he was excellent,” said Head Coach Ryan Stoffel on Sherry’s performance. “I thought he stayed within himself and was not too nervous, he found the strike zone, got ahead in counts and did really well. They all ran into a little trouble late and kind of, I wouldn't say, struggled with it, but you could see he was laboring, and he was thinking too much. Today, we were just not putting the ball in play. We're not barreling balls up.  I just told them that they are really good at checkers, meaning, at three o'clock when they're hitting the crap out of the ball. But we're not so good at chess right now. Right? Meaning that batting practice is a checkers game and the game itself as a chess match, right? So, we need to get out of our heads and figure out how to, have more quality at bats and put balls in play.”

Stoffel said practice the next few days was going to be game simulation the best he could without using his pitcher’s arms up given they have three games this week.

Simley comes to town on Apr. 18th and the Raiders travel to Tartan on the 21st, both games are scheduled for a 4:30 p.m. start.