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Tigers dominate against East Newton
The Nevada Tigers had a great day at Lyon’s Stadium Thursday afternoon, after picking up their 10th win of the 2023 season, and fourth win against a Big 8 West Conference opponent. The Tigers defeated the East Newton Patriots in six and a half innings with a final score of 9-1.
“It's another conference victory, which obviously is our number one priority,” stated Head Coach Danny Penn after the game Thursday. Scoring nine runs is nice. I thought we probably left some runs out in the field. We only had five hits all day, but I thought we hit a lot of balls hard, especially early in the game. Overall, I was pretty pleased with our at bats today.”
The Tigers only allowed the Patriots to have two hits and one run in the entire ball game today, with No. 28 Case Sanderson on the mound for Nevada. In each inning that Sanderson pitched (except in the fourth when he faced four batters), he went 1-2-3 in getting the batters out, including 10 strikeouts. Sanderson was replaced in the top of the seventh by No. 9 Barrett Naturada, who only allowed one hit and one run to score. A successful day on the mound is something Coach Penn is proud of.
“Case did a really nice job of being efficient today. He attacked batters when they came up to the plate. I think he found out pretty early that he and Cade (No. 4 Beshore - catcher) were struggling with his velocity, and he was throwing a lot of fast balls early in the count. Then we saw that their batters were kind of starting to get on that front foot, so that's when he went to the curve ball down in the zone and had a lot of swings and misses over the top of those. Case did a really nice job working with Cade and figuring out what was going to be successful. Anytime you can do that, things usually are going pretty well.”
And what caused Sanderson to be so good on the mound Thursday? Here’s what he told the Nevada Daily Mail.
“Today I felt more loose and I did my warmup differently, so my warmup helped me be more prepared and ready for the game.”
The Tigers will get ready to compete in six games in just seven days, with a double header against Joplin/Smithville this upcoming Saturday, as well as playing four games Tuesday through Friday of next week. Talking about the busy schedule with more games than practices, Coach Penn made it clear it could go either way for Nevada, and that they have to keep their momentum up to win games.
“It all starts on Saturday with the double header against two quality teams and Joplin and Smithville. Those are quality teams where we want to test ourselves and see how we stack up now that we are way past the halfway point of the season. That'll be a good challenge. Hopefully we come out of their two wins. If we don't, hopefully we recognize areas where we can still improve, as as the season does, one down. Tuesday through Friday, we have to stack positive games and positive practices to build positive momentum. That can be a lot of fun. If we run into some adversity, hopefully we're able to work through that and be willing to spend a little bit of extra time after a game getting whatever reps we may need. On the flip side of that, baseball's a game where you have to be able to turn the page and move on to the next day. If you have a bad game one night, recognize what you did poorly and see what you can improve, and then also recognize that the next day is a new opportunity to come into it with a fresh perspective and a good frame of mind.”