Van Buren posts win at NHS

Van Buren continued its recent winning streak on Thursday. A three-RBI home run off the bat of Jackson Hurst in the top of the first inning enabled the Pointers to lead from start to finish in an 8-3 non-conference win against Northside at Hunts Park. The win gave Van Buren (12-8) its fifth consecutive win. “We’ve been playing better,” Van Buren coach David Loyd said. “We’ve got three weeks of tough games coming up and we’ve been swinging the bats better; we didn’t swing them real good (Thursday) but we’ve been swinging the bats pretty good and hopefully, that will continue and we just keep improving.” The Pointers, however, needed just one big swing of the bat early. With two runners on and two out in the top of the first, Hurst came to the plate. On a full count, Hurst sent a drive over the fence in left field to give the Pointers a quick 3-0 advantage. “That kind of got us off to a good start, but we didn’t really do a whole lot after that, just kind of added one on here and there but did just enough to kind of separate it there (in the late innings) and Landrey (Wilkerson) pitched pretty well I thought for us and defensively, I thought we played pretty well and glad to get a win,” Loyd said. Northside (3-15) nearly tied the score in the bottom of the second. Bobby Rauch led off the inning with a solo homer to center. The Grizzlies then put runners on first and second with two out. That brought up Derrick Wise, who doubled one of those runners home. The second runner attempted to score but Pointer shortstop Bryce Waters received the relay throw from center fielder Hayden Roark and threw a strike to catcher Dakota Peters, who made the tag for the final out of the inning and keeping the Pointer lead intact. Van Buren then added to its lead. Peters and Waters each hit sacrifice flies in the third and fourth, respectively, to make it 5-2. Then in the top of the sixth, Noah Lipe delivered a two-out two-run single, and Trevor Johnson followed with an RBI double as the Pointers broke the game open with an 8-2 advantage. Wilkerson was able to finish off the complete game, allowing two earned runs on six hits. He walked one and struck out 10 batters. “He’s a competitor, he competes. ... (Northside) had some situations where they had some baserunners and he has a knack for getting out of that, so we kind of rely on him both hitting and pitching and he’s come through for us pretty much all year long,” Loyd said. Johnson was 3-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored for the Pointers. Wise went 2-for-3 with his RBI double for Northside, which got its last run in the bottom of the sixth on an RBI groundout from Luke Rotert. Van Buren turns around on Friday and is at home to take on Alma while the Grizzlies resume 6A-Central play against Bryant, also on Friday.

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VAN BUREN POSTS WIN AT NHS

BUCK RINGGOLD

Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette | 4/12/2019

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Mitchell