MONTAGUE — Montague entered the district tournament in peak form,
and the Wildcats showed Tuesday they're ready to compete for a
mitten-shaped trophy, blanking Hart 10-0 in the first round of the
tournament.
The Wildcat pitchers threw their third no-hitter
in the past four games. Cole Herremans threw the first two innings, and
Eli Pendell handled the last three. Herremans struck out three and
Pendell fanned four.
"I think that we do a great job at switching up velocities and just switching up pitches and making sure we're not
doing anything too perfectly," Herremans said. "We're not doing any rocket science or anything with our pitching."
The
Montague bats helped keep things simple for Wildcat pitchers, too,
jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning. The first three Wildcats
to bat reached base, and after a pair of productive outs each drove in a
run, Eli Petersen lined a RBI single to left field, followed by
Herremans' line drive single to score Petersen.
A quick start
was important for Montague; coach Jeff Moss was on staff in 2022 when an
underdog Hesperia team came in and pushed the Wildcats to their limit
in a 1-0 district semifinal win. He didn't want to see history repeat
itself, so much so that he briefly considered going against his usual
instinct and choosing to be the road team when his team won the pregame
coin toss.
Montague's Fletcher Thommen is hit by a pitch during Tuesday's pre-district game against Hart. The Wildcats won the game, 10-0.
"Maybe we want to hit first and see if we can put some
pressure on them," Moss said of his thought process. "But when I win the
flip, I've always gone home team, so I didn't want to break that. I'm
kind of superstitious. We put the runs on them right away, and we felt
comfortable, and that's exactly what we wanted to do."
Hart
got its leadoff batter on via a hit-by-pitch in the second inning, but
an interference call was made at second base when Levi Auger attempted
to turn a double play on a ground ball, awarding the Wildcats the second
out on the way to another scoreless inning. Montague then loaded the
bases in the bottom of the frame, and Dylan Bailey ripped a two-run
single to make it 6-0. Chase Kurtzhal followed with his own RBI single.
Montague
continued adding runs in the fourth inning as Herremans had a two-run
single. Karter Johnson delivered a run-scoring double to put the mercy
rule into play, and Pendell took care of business in the top of the
fifth to end the game.
Montague's fielders were equally as
impressive as its pitching and hitting, as the team played errorless
defense in the field. The fourth inning saw Petersen make two nice plays
at third base and Johnson add one at shortstop.
"That's been a thorn in our side all year," Moss said of defense. "We've been hitting a lot of
ground balls to the middle infield and the left side, trying to brush
that up. It actually showed tonight. Karter Johnson was solid at
shortstop and made some plays deep in the hole there...We're hopefully getting ready at the
right time here."
Another reason it would be the right time
for Montague is its district semifinal matchup against North Muskegon
Saturday. The two teams have consistently played exciting district games
against one another in recent years, and Saturday's could potentially
follow that pattern.
"These kids, the seniors, have seen that
team and people on that team for three years, so we're
comfortable with them," Moss said. "We've just got to do the small
things right, play
a clean baseball game, pitch well. They're probably throwing (Logan)
Slimko or (Kylan) Nielsen, and either one's good. If it's Slimko, we've
got to try to
steal a couple runs and protect it. If we can do that,
if I feel very confident of moving on, but they're a tough
team to beat."
Petersen, Herremans and Johnson each had two hits to lead the Wildcats, and Herremans and Bailey each drove in three runs.
