When Pekin arrived at Hillcrest on Friday night, the Panthers had not allowed more than three runs in a game all season. They had also not scored fewer than three runs in a game, and more importantly, they had not suffered a loss. 

But by the end of the game none of those things were true anymore, as Hillcrest picked up its first win of the season, 5-2 over the conference leaders. 

The Ravens had held seventh inning leads twice before in the young season, but couldn’t shut the door. 

The Panthers put two on base in the seventh. But with his third strikeout of the inning, Luke Schrock slammed the door shut and put the Ravens in the win column. 

“We’ve been in situations before where we’ve had leads late and we let it get away, and so we just wanted to make sure that we stayed focused on defense,” Hillcrest coach Danny Hershberger said. 

“Luke Schrock did a great job on the mound of just being aggressive and throwing a lot of strikes and making Pekin hit the ball. And he did a great job of getting some strikeouts there to finish the game out for us.”

Noah Miller got the Ravens started on the right foot, working a full count and drawing a leadoff walk in the first. Eli Ours fell behind 0-2, but reached base on an error, and London Schrock’s single gave the Ravens the game’s first run. 

“I think our guys did a great job of picking which pitches to hit and finding ways to get on base,” Hershberger said. “I thought they did a great job of being patient and having a great approach at the plate that we needed. We worked the count a little bit, and then we did a great job of getting hits and getting on base and we had two strikes.”

Jace Rempel also had an RBI single in the first inning .Liam Schrock’s single drove in Luke Schrock, who led off the third reaching base on an error. 

Grant Bender led off the fourth with a single and then the Ravens took advantage of a couple Pekin errors to go up 5-1. 

“It’s rare for them to make mistakes, but I thought our guys did a good job of being aggressive, whether it was on the bases or bunting to kind of force them into some mistakes as well,” Hershberger said. “Anytime that we can be aggressive and kind of put pressure on the defense to make a play, that’s kind of what we like to do. And it worked out for us.”

London Schrock picked up the win, allowing one earned run on five hits and a walk in five innings. Luke Schrock pitched the final two innings. He gave up a hit and two walks and record all six outs via strikeout. 

Hillcrest 24, Wapello 9

After falling behind 6-0, Hillcrest put up two dozen runs in two innings to beat Wapello 24-9  on Monday.
London Schrock was 3 for 5 and drove in four runs for the Ravens. Sophomores Luke Schrock and Jace Rempel each had three hits and three RBIs, while Eli Ours was 2 for 3 and drove in five runs during the blitz. 

Rempel doubled twice. Noah Miller had two hits, including a double, and Liam Schrock had two hits as well as Hillcrest (2-3) won its second straight  conference game.