By Bruce Karnick

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The Hastings Hawks amateur baseball team had a busy weekend. After starting the season with a win, the Hawks dropped the next three games to start the season 13, 02 in league play. This past weekend, the Hawks schedule was going to become a bit more difficult.

The Hawks are a Class C team, and they play in a league of Class C and Class B teams. The primary difference between the two classes is where the players are from. The class designation is based on a point system and a team can have a maximum of 45 points to be Class C.

A player that lives in a designated area, either the city limits or school district does not count against the point total, but the designated area’s population does with one point per 1,000 people in the chosen area. The last population point total was 22 for Hastings. In comparison, Miesville has one point for population.

Players outside the designated area are assigned points based on the highest level of play. Junior College is one point, D3 College is two, D2 is three, D1 is four and Pro is five. Players over 35 years old are zero. Player points for Hastings is only 15 total because the Hawks work to recruit Hastings kids as a priority where Miesville has 57 player points.

This information is important to understand to help with the significance of the weekend’s events. Hasting played host to the Hampton Cardinals on Saturday and Dundas Dukes on Sunday. Both of these teams are Class B teams who have their players from all over the region.

The game against Hampton became more than a game when a former player, manager, board member, announcer and allaround sports loving guy, Wayne Erickson, passed away unexpectedly in February at the age of 82. Erickson was part of the Cardinals team from 195778 as a player, manager and groundskeeper and then with the Hawks from 1996 to 2016 as a manager, announcer and board member. 20 years with each organization is a huge deal, more than 60 years impacting community sports is even a bigger deal.

The Hawks Board of Directors knew they needed to do something to honor the legacy of Erickson and chose the Hampton/Hastings game as the time to do it. The day started with an emotional memorial service for friends and family at the ballpark with Erickson’s grandsons Logan and Luke throwing out the first pitch, one to each team. The Hawks also created a travelling trophy to carry on the connection that Erickson had to both teams. The winner of the most recent game will keep the trophy and the scores will be documented on it for future generations of baseball players to know.

Hampton jumped out to an early three run lead taking advantage of Max Bundschu on the mound in the first. Bundschu settled in nicely for the next four innings allowing only four runs total in the outing on no walks and nine hits.

The Cardinal’s Ryan Fering kept the Hawks batters off balance all night until the bottom of the seventh when Noah Paulseth hit a deep sacrifice fly to center scoring Cole Benson to make it a 41 game.

The Cardinals scored two more in the top of the eighth to make it 61, and the game was slowly slipping away from Hastings. That is when the flood gates opened up for the Hawks.

Jason Greeder led off with a double, Jordan Jeske hit a single to right scoring Greeder, Ben Bundschu hit a single to left, Benson hit a single to right scoring Jeske and Bundschu, Jake Sandquist walked and Benson was moved to third on a wild pitch during Sandquist’s at bat. Sandquist moved to second on a wild pitch. Cory Wolters was walked and Noah Paulseth drove in Sandquist with a single to left, tying the game at six.

Jake Biermaier drove in Wolters on a fielder’s choice that sent Paulseth to the bench for the first out. Isaac Flynn hit a single and the Hawks made it through the line up back to Greeder. Greeder hit a hard grounder right at the second baseman who misplayed the ball allowing Greeder to reach second.

A second error on the second baseman moved Greeder to third. By now, the Hawks had not only come back to tie the game in the ninth, but they also now had the lead. Bundschu drove in the final run of the inning and Hastings won 106 after a ninerun inning.

“Hey, do you know who Wayne’s favorite Hawks player is?” asked Nick Norsch after the game.

“For some reason, me. Know what number I wear?” Horsch added.

He wears number nine. “How many runs did we score in the eighth?” he smiled as he pointed to the sky.

Hawks newcomer, Tommy Ritt made his return to the mound after time off for Tommy John surgery. Ritt threw six pitches to earn the save and the Hawks had their first victory over the Cardinals in at least six years. Hastings also won the Wayne Erickson Memorial Trophy in the first ever contest to determine it’s home.

After a win, the Hawks pick a player of the game, someone that made a huge impact on the outcome, that went to Jason Greeder for starting off the ninerun inning. Greeder went 3for5 at the plate with two RBIs, and two runs scored.

After an emotional game on Saturday, the Dundas Dukes came to town Sunday. The Dukes are quite often a top 10 in the state for Class B, so this was going to be a tough test for Hastings.

The scoring did not start until the second inning when Dundas took the lead 20 in the top of the frame. Hastings answered right back. Flynn hit a single up the middle. Wolters, who had been struggling at the plate, logged his first hit of the season, a bunt single down the third base line. Paulseth hit a sacrifice fly to center to move the runners, and Biermaier drove in the first run. Jordy Horsch hit a single up the middle scoring Wolters to tie the game.

Hastings added one more run in the third, a basesloaded walk to Paulseth and one more in the sixth when Jeske hit a hard grounder to second causing the fielder to misplay the ball. The error scored Jordy Horsch to extend Hastings lead and end the scoring with Hastings winning, 42.

Jeske started on the mound for Hastings, and he was efficient all day allowing only two runs on seven hits in eight innings. He struck out three and walked two on 103 pitches. Ritt earned his second save in as many days closing out the ninth.

With the two wins over Class B teams, the Hawks move to 33 on the season and 22 in the league. The Hawks will travel to Miesville to take on the Mudhens on May 27 at 8 p.m. Then they travel to Hampton for a rematch at 2 p.m. on May 29. They return home for a Memorial Day game against the Rochester Royals at 2 p.m.

Jordan Jeske earned the player of the game against Dundas for his stellar pitching performance. Eight innings pitched with 103 pitches, Three strikeouts, two walks and only two runs allowed helping the Hawks earn a 42 win. Photo courtesy of the Hastings Hawks.