ACH baseball sweeps Wellpinit in doubleheader

COULEE CITY — The Almira/Coulee-Hartline baseball team continued its strong start to the season with a doubleheader sweep of Wellpinit on Tuesday, winning by scores of 17-1 and 16-1.

“Our pitching was pretty good, Harvest Parrish threw the first one and threw pretty good, and Jameson Conley threw the second one and he threw pretty well too,” ACH head coach Hunter Lee said. “We swung it really well today.”

Swinging the bat well has been a common theme throughout ACH’s first six games, all of which resulted in wins; the Warriors recorded 21 hits in both games of the season-opening doubleheader against Odessa — winning 17-0 and 21-5 — and 28 hits in last weekend’s doubleheader against Selkirk, winning 32-1 and 18-0.

“We’re hitting really well right now,” Lee said. “We’re seeing the ball well, we’re hitting a lot. That’s the main thing. Our baserunning has been really good so far; we’ve been able to steal some runs with our baserunning, and almost everybody on our team can steal. We’re a threat on the bases.”

Against Wellpinit on Tuesday, ACH jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. The first four runs were scored off of bases-loaded walks before sophomore Brady Roberts delivered a two-RBI single. Junior Grayson Beal and senior John Pierce drove in runs before Beal scored on an error, giving the Warriors their 10-0 lead

ACH added another seven runs in the bottom of the second inning, and held on to run-rule Wellpinit in the first game.

The nightcap had a similar finish, with the Warriors putting up seven runs across the game’s first three innings before scoring nine runs in the bottom of the fourth, where Beal, Pierce, junior Carter Pitts and junior Jameson Conley all batted in runs. Conley’s hit closed the game in a 16-1 win for the Warriors.

Pierce and Beal led the Warriors with five hits and five RBI from both games combined.

“Going from last year to this year I’ve had a big change; last year I struggled at the plate — I went from being a JV player to a varsity player, and it really hurt me,” Pierce said. “I played this summer with the team as well, and I think between last year and the summer ball it’s really helping my confidence at the plate.”

Even with the big wins, Pierce said there are still things to work on.

“Working as a team definitely helped,” Pierce said. “We had some errors in the field, but the best part about that is being able to bounce back and come back and attack.”

ACH takes a pause from league play for a standalone game against Omak’s varsity squad Thursday. 

“That’ll be fun to test ourselves two classifications up,” Lee said. “We beat them last year, so we’re looking forward to trying to beat them again.”

Omak, a 1A school, is one of two non-1B teams the Warriors will face this spring; ACH travels to Manson (2B) in the regular season finale on April 29.

“It’s what we need to do because we have title aspirations and playoff aspirations,” Lee said. “We need to play the best teams we can. It’s a single game too, so we just need to get up for one game. We’re really excited for it because we want to play the best. We don’t care what level they are, we just want to play good teams and test ourselves.”

First pitch between the Warriors and Pioneers is at 4 p.m. Thursday at the Hartline Ball Fields.

“We’ve been beating teams by quite a few runs, and I’m excited to see what happens against the better teams,” Pierce said. “I think if we stick to the fundamentals and (play) what ACH baseball really is, then we should be good to go.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box scores

Game One

WPT: 0-0-1-0 1
ACH: 10-7-0-X 17

Game Two

WPT: 0-0-1-0 1
ACH: 4-1-2-9 16

    ACH senior John Pierce, left, leads off of first base.
  

    ACH junior Carter Pitts throws the ball back to first base during the second game of the Warriors’ doubleheader against Wellpinit.
  

    ACH junior Grayson Beal keeps his eye on the batter while looking to steal third base.