PERRYSBURG — Perrysburg senior Matt Hubbard wants his team to be successful, but just as important are his plans to relish his final year playing baseball with his teammates before he moves on to play at the University of Toledo.
“I just like to play with these guys this whole year,” Hubbard said. “We’ve been playing since we were young and I’m just excited to win some ballgames in the league, do well in states (tournament) and just get after it.”
Hubbard combined with starting pitcher Aaron Banks to hold Rossford to one hit as the Yellow Jackets mercied the Bulldogs, 12-1, in five innings at Jim Leyland Field Friday.
Banks started, striking out the side in the first inning and going on to record seven K’s while walking two batters, allowing one hit, and no earned runs in three innings.
Hubbard faced the minimum six batters over two innings, striking out one, and allowing his defense get the rest done as center fielder Braxton Mefferd had two running catches to take away base hits from Rossford batters.
Meanwhile, Perrysburg’s offense was clicking, scoring multiple runs in every inning and pounding out 12 hits in just four innings at the plate.
Trent Bezek was 2-for-3 with a triple and RBI, Hubbard was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBI, Mefferd was 2-for-2 with three RBI, and Brayden Heitmeyer was 2-for-3 with an RBI and scored two runs.
Quinn Weber doubled, scored two runs and had an RBI, Connor Kessinger had a base hit, RBI, and reached twice on walks, Carter Stanton had a two-RBI base hit, and Tyler Palmer had a base hit.
Mefferd had two stolen bases, Kessinger and Parker Faris had one SB apiece, and Weber reached base after getting hit by a pitch.
Most of the damage came against Rossford starting pitcher Jackson Yerkes, who struck out four, walked three, allowed eight hits, but only five of nine runs scored were charged against Yerkes because of two errors.
Unfortunately for Yerkes, he came up against a pent-up Perrysburg team that was tired of practicing indoors all week because of poor weather.
“He’s a plus pitcher. We came out focused,” Perrysburg coach Dave Hall said. “We’ve been sitting since that loss Saturday (to Dayton Chaminade-Julienne) and I think the kids were focused today. We came out ready to play. We were tired of being in that gym.”
Brody Nusbaum had Rossford’s only hit, a double in the second inning which scored Nick Taddonio, who had reached on an error. The Bulldogs suffered their first loss of the season after opening with two wins.
For Hall, it was nice to see his team get back on the diamond since the 14-10 loss to Chaminade-Julienne in a game played at Wapakoneta last Saturday.
Hubbard was one of the pitchers in that game, and the Jackets gave up nine runs to the Eagles in one inning on a series of walks, errors, and other mistakes.
Since then, weather has kept the Jackets off the field, but Hall liked the response Friday. The Yellow Jackets open Northern Lakes League play Saturday at 2 p.m. against Springfield at Leyland Field.
“We are where we should be,” Hall said. “It was nice to see ‘Hubbie’ (Hubbard) for the last two innings there. I think we are going to be in the hunt. I think our division is going to be crazy.
I think Anthony Wayne is going to be good, Northview is good, and Springfield has a lot of seniors so that will be a good test tomorrow. We’re excited. Then next week we get into the meat of the league and we’ll find out what is going to happen.”
In addition, Hubbard believes Perrysburg is about to get better real soon because two key players return from injuries.
“I think we are locked in,” Hubbard said. “We just got our two other players back — Abram Hire and Jack Losee, and they will be playing tomorrow and all I’m going to say is we are ready.”
