Chase Schultz never let the Bulldog batters get comfortable during Highland’s 3-1 win over Mediapolis on Tuesday. 

The Huskie junior did not allow a hit through the first four innings and struck out 13 batters as Highland stayed perfect at 4-0 in conference play. 

“He was really consistent,” Highland coach Seth Milledge said. “He was just a strike thrower all night, and kept them off balance by going in and out. And then he had a nice breaking ball as well, really from the first inning on. He was just mixing up some speeds and also just sticking pitches where they needed to be.”

Schultz was one out away from a 2-hit shutout when he walked a batter and gave up back-to-back singles, surrendering a run and hitting his pitch-count limit. 

With the tying runs in scoring position, Trevor McFarland induced a ground ball to end the game. 

Last year, Highland was on the wrong side of a 3-1 score as Mediapolis scored twice in the seventh inning to prevent the Huskies from winning a conference championship in the final game of the regular season.

“I guess it was in the back of our minds,” Milledge said. “I'd say that we wanted to come out and have a strong performance against them and get a win this time, rather than, you know, sulk in defeat.

“Obviously, our goal right now is to set ourselves up for a conference championship this year, and start out 4-0 in conference. Beating one of the top teams in our conference year in year out in Mepo... that’s a good thing to do.”

The Bulldogs had an opportunity to score some runs early in the game when Schultz issued three of his five walks in the second inning. Trevor McFarland was able to throw out a runner trying to take third base with two on and no outs, and Schultz worked his way out of the jam. 

McFarland and Schultz were hit by pitches with the bases loaded to give Highland a 2-0 lead in the third inning.

Peyton Yeggy reached base on an error to lead off the inning. Luke Miller drew a one-out walk and an infield single from Connor Grinstead loaded the bases. 

“Throughout the entire evening we were just trying to be patient at the plate,” Milledge said. “(Tyler Samuel) kept us from winning the conference championship last year, and he did a very good job of keeping us off balance last night, but we were able to work counts and get enough, like get a walk here, a seeing-eye single or something that just gets through — and then fortunate for us he was a little wild there in the the fourth inning and he hit a couple of our batters while we had bases juiced.”

Yeggy reached base in the sixth inning with a two-out walk. He stole second and the Huskies ended up with runners on the corners after Brenton Bonebrake was hit by a pitch. 

Bonebrake left first base early to draw a throw, allowing Yeggy to take home before Bonebrake was tagged for the final out of the inning. 

“Just manufacturing runs and being able to do that sometimes is really what it takes,” Milledge said. “We scored 15 runs in each of the last two baseball games before last night, but being able to do what we needed to do to scratch one across and score enough last night was good to see.”