SPRING VALLEY — Elmwood/Plum City came to the April 16 road rivalry game at Spring Valley ready to play, as senior Ari Perez, the second hitter of the game, was hit by a pitch, scoring on a triple to center field from junior Oliver Mendlik to open the scoring one out into the first inning. An error on a grounder to the pitcher brought Mendlik home for a 2-0 lead after one.

In the third, the Wolves tacked on three more. The inning began with a leadoff single to left from Mendlik, followed by another single to left from junior Robbie Duffy and an error at third on a Logan Auth grounder to load the bases with no outs. A groundout from senior Skyler Fischer plated one, but it was the Wolf senior pitcher Hudson Hewitt that truly helped himself out, whacking a base hit to score two and take a 5-0 lead.

The Cardinals pushed back in the bottom of the inning on a Boomer Bune walk, a Jake Hannack single and a Mason Winger hit by pitch to load the bases with no outs for themselves. Up came senior Will Biggs, whose ground ball to shortstop Perez brought in a run on a fielder’s choice. Junior Braden Gregg also hit a ground ball to the shortstop, with an error plating a pair of runs to cut the EPC lead to 5-3 after three. Sophomore Milo Shafer’s single in the bottom of the fourth was good for another run, but that would be all the scoring in the 5-4 EPC win.

The pitching from the Wolves was exceptional, holding Spring Valley to two hits on the day. Hewitt went six innings, allowing two hits and four runs (three of them unearned), and Perez shut the door in the seventh with a relatively clean inning to earn a save.

“We started off really slow at the beginning of the season when we were supposed to have high expectations,” Hewitt said. “I think after this win we’re going to start getting it going again.”

“I was struggling at the beginning of the year to get my fastballs down. I really worked on it this week, and I was able to get that consistent and open up what I wanted to do,” Hewitt said.
Perez came into a tough spot, being asked to make the final three outs, but he took the challenge in stride, allowing one runner on a walk and striking out a pair to get the job done.

“That’s a really hard position to be in, up by one and he hasn’t pitched all game. That was the best pitching I’ve seen him do in a long time,” Hewitt said.

EPC Head Coach Cory Brathall was pleased with the way the team has improved since an 0-3 start with losses of 10 or more runs each time.

“It’s huge for our confidence. We started off the season rough; we weren’t playing well and things snowballed. We have the ability to be a solid baseball team, and we showed it tonight,” Brathall said.

While it was not the peak of what the EPC lineup can do, the two early inning rallies showcased the depth of the lineup.

“That was a full team effort. It wasn’t just one guy,” Brathall said. “We had good at-bats, we jumped on them early. I didn’t love that we stayed at five [runs] for about five innings, I would have liked to tack some on, but we had base runners on all game. It’s just proving to these guys that we can play a complete baseball game and be successful.”

Early rallies have been consistent for EPC this year, scoring a pair of runs in the first inning in three out of four games. Brathall said the team ebbs and flows with the momentum of the game, something that benefits them at times and costs them at others.

“They kind of play up when they’re feeling good, and when things go wrong, that’s the thing we’ve always struggled with the past couple years. Turn around and keep your head up when errors happen or walks happen,” Brathall said. “We really need to get on guys early.”

Pitching was a struggle for the Wolves early in the year; however, Brathall said Hewitt worked extremely hard during the week in practice to get his throwing mechanics right. It showed on game day, as he was locating his pitches right where he wanted to. Brathall also liked what he saw from Perez in the seventh.

“If we can get our pitchers to throw strikes, that's what they struggled at the first few games. And it’s a lot easier to play defense when the pitchers are throwing strikes,” Brathall said.