PHOTOS BY RACHEL NAGEL / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
LAYING OUT … Evergreen second baseman Bryce Bolger lays out to catch a throw down by the catcher. VIEW PHOTOS OF THIS CONTEST FOR FREE AT WWW.THEVILLAGEREPORTER.COM.
NWOAL CONTEST … Delta’s Carlos DeSantos catches a pop fly in the fifth inning of an NWOAL game at Evergreen.
By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
METAMORA (April 20, 2026) – One pitch. After falling behind 7–1 after an inning, Delta was one pitch away from coming all the way back from that six-run deficit.
Trailing Evergreen 7–6, the Panthers had cleanup hitter Carlos DeSantos at the plate with runners on second and third and two down in the sixth.
It was then that the Vikings’ Austin Burghardt fired a fastball past DeSantos for strike three, and it was the Vikings who rallied for six runs in their half of the inning to close the door on a 13–6 win.
“Pitch of the game right there,” Evergreen coach Chris Owens said. “2–2 count with runners in scoring position—a base hit right there and they more than likely take the lead.
“Instead, Austin makes a great pitch, we get out of trouble, and put together a great inning offensively. This is what we have been looking for all season—putting two together.
“We are finally starting to feel some of the momentum from the team last year that won a league title and finished in the Elite 8. We have to keep building on this. We still have a long way to go.”
Up to that point, most of the scoring in the game was the result of defensive miscues.
Delta went ahead in the first when, with runners at first and second and two down, Jacob Walter’s pop fly into left-center fell for a hit when two Viking outfielders got caught looking at each other.
Evergreen put a seven-spot on the board in the bottom of the frame, mostly because Panther starter Gary Valentine hit four batters, walked two more, and threw a wild pitch.
Jake Farley had the only two base hits in the inning—the first a leadoff single to start the inning, the second a run-scoring hit to cap the outburst.
Carter Morr came to the mound in relief in the second and was stellar, hurling four innings of two-hit ball.
The Panthers picked up unearned runs against Nolan Hudik in the fourth and the fifth to make it 7–3.
In the fourth, Desantos singled and stole second to open the inning. When he went to third on a groundout, a back-pick throw from first was up the elevator, allowing DeSantos to trot home.
Wyatt Flickinger opened the fifth with a single and also stole second. Hudik seemingly got out of the inning as he struck out the next two hitters and got a third to bounce to Troy Manz at third.
However, Manz’s throw to first was a short hop, allowing the inning to continue, and Lane Lopez made the Vikings pay with an RBI single on another pop fly that was catchable in the outfield, making it 7–3.
Delta closed the gap even further against Burghardt in the sixth. Jackson Niner’s single, a pair of walks, along with a throwing error, closed the gap to 7–4.
Jadon Lohman’s long double scored another run, and Lopez’s sacrifice fly brought in one more.
Then, after evening the count on DeSantos using a pair of breaking pitches, Burghardt threw a fastball by the Panthers’ big hitter to extinguish the threat.
Evergreen finally got to Morr in the bottom of the inning. Farley got his third hit of the day, a one-out single.
Chris Shrader then rocketed a triple off the fence in deep center to score one run, then scored when Bryce Bolger smacked a double down the left-field line to make it 9–6.
Another run scored on DeSantos’s error, and Burghardt helped his own cause with an opposite-field double to push the lead to 11–6. After Manz’s bunt single, Blake Boucher rapped a two-run single up the middle to cap the salvo.
“In the middle innings, we were hitting Morr’s pitch—give him a lot of credit for the job he did,” Owens said. Our guys made a good adjustment. We started seeing pitches, and we started driving the baseball.”
Hudik got the win, giving up five hits and one earned run. The junior struck out five and walked one.
DHS 100 113 0 – 6 5 2
EHS 700 006 X – 13 14 6
WP- Nolan Hudik (IP-5, H-3, R-3, BB-2, K-6)
LP- Gary Valentine (IP-1 H-3, R-7, BB-6, K-1
LEADING HITTERS (Evergreen) Chris Shrader – triple, single, 2 RBIs; Jake Farley – 3 singles, RBI; Austin Burghardt – double, 2 RBIs; (Delta) Jadon Lohman – double