Baseball team wins two over rival Elkhorn
By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
Entering last week, the Delavan-Darien baseball team had two games to play against Elkhorn Area High School. By the week’s end, the Comets gave themselves a two-game boost to the win total, moving the team’s overall record to 10-11 on the season with two games remaining.
On May 19, the Comets started hot, shutting down Elkhorn at home in the top of the first, then putting five runs on the board in the bottom of the opening inning. Singles by junior third baseman Roman Gonzalez and junior catcher Jacob Klewin led the opening charge, as well as a two-run error to open the game.
Head coach Paul Yanko said it was good to get off to a quick start, but the team let Elkhorn back in the game later on. In the fifth inning, Elkhorn put up four runs thanks to three Comet errors, cutting the deficit to 6-4.
“That has been a concern for us lately where one bad inning has hurt us,” Yanko said. “That’s the most errors we have had in a game in a while. I give our guys credit though. They didn’t let that one inning bring us down. They kept their composure and scored a couple of needed insurance runs.”
In the sixth inning, two runs were scored thanks to Gonzalez’s double. The third baseman recorded three RBIs in his three-hit game, helping the Comets to its eventual 8-5 victory.
In the final game of the week, Elkhorn got its chance at revenge, this time on its home field, but the Comets put a complete game together to sweep the season series. Seven runs were scored in four separate innings, leading Delavan-Darien to a 7-0 win.
Starting again in the first inning, the Comets scored one run, followed by another run in the second. More runs were added on later, and on the mound, senior Isiah Ramos allowed five total hits in his shutout.
“We didn’t have the big start we had on Tuesday, but I was happy with chipping away and continuing to add to our lead throughout the game,” Yanko said. “Five of our hitters had two hits. We’ll need to keep that going in the post season.”
The five hitters posting multi-hit games for the Comets were Ramos, Gonzalez, Jacob Benzing, Ethan Cesarz and Logan Rios. Ramos’ success on the day both at the plate and on the mound didn’t go unnoticed.
Taking the entire season to this point into account, Ramos has been selected to play in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Classic on June 26 and 27 in Oshkosh. Ramos will represent the East Team in games for the top senior baseball players in Wisconsin.
Thanks to Ramos and his teammates’ recent success, the team has the chance to finish the season above .500, with two nonconference games remaining on the regular season schedule this week. The Comets were scheduled to play their final road game Tuesday at Whitewater High School.
At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, the team gets its last chance to win at home against Big Foot High School.
