Gresham baseball team unable to overcome early deficit

The Gresham Community High School baseball team fell behind early and eventually lost 15-3 in five innings to Manawa in a Central Wisconsin Conference-North Division contest May 5 in Gresham.

Manawa seized control of the contest with a seven-run first inning. The visitors had their first eight batters reach and drew five walks in the frame. Gresham also gifted Manawa a couple runs on misplayed balls.

The visitors continued to tack on to their lead and led 15-0 before Gresham was able to score in the fourth and fifth innings.

In the fourth frame, Lukas Pecore started the inning with a single and came around to score after four walks. Wesley Thiex drew the bases-loaded walk to force in Pecore.

Gresham was able to end the game positively with two runs in the fifth. Belasaire Vele battled at the plate before drawing a walk, and then Pecore crushed a two-run homer to left field.

“We just use it as motivation,” said Vele of the late runs against Manawa. “We want to win the conference this year. Might be a little tough, but we’re just going to keep going hard and we’ll see what happens.”

After scoring late, Gresham is now focused on figuring out a way to have its offense show up earlier in games so they aren’t playing from behind.

“We got to hype up our team, talk a lot more, encourage,” said Pecore, who added the team was still very young.

Although it wasn’t able to score until the later innings, Gresham had some other scoring chances.

Bryson Nelson and Pecore each singled in the first inning, but a strikeout on a check swing ended the frame.

Blade Hoffman singled to open the third, stole second and then moved up to third on a groundout, but he was doubled off third on a Vele lineout to the pitcher.

Gresham used three pitchers to get through the contest. Jack Haffner started but was unable to record an out. Kale James came on in relief and worked into the fourth inning before Robert Kaquatosh got the final six outs.

“I mean, we got to start out on top. Our pitchers have to throw strikes, and the defense has to play defense,” said Pecore on how to team can improve at the start of games.

Along with his homer and two runs scored, Pecore ended up with three of the team’s five hits.

“We just got to be strong,” said Vele. “We have to get out fundamentals down, getting the easy plays that we can get. Getting in and out of the inning, getting the bats going — that helps a lot to either get a lead or stay in the game.”

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