The Eagle Grove baseball boys took on West Hancock on the other Eagles team’s home turf Saturday, for a varsity double header that added a game from a prior rain postponement.
The first game came down to the performance of the batters at the plate. Both teams were at bat about the same amount, 30 times for Eagle Grove, and 28 for West Hancock. But Eagle Grove’s guys were slugging 4 times as much as West Hancock’s, with better than double the batting average. Which translated to hits, with Eagle Grove’s Eagles chalking up 10 hits to the West Hancock Eagles’ 4. And that translated to bases and that included home bases.
Eagle Grove started things out by chalking 1 in the 1st. They added 2 more in the 3rd. But it wasn’t until the 5th that West Hancock put their first 2 up, and Eagle Grove matched that with 2 more of their own. Then the Eagle Grove fellas clinched it with a 7th inning run to finish 6 to 2, over West Hancock.
Then came the 2nd game of the double header, and it’s safe to say both teams were well warmed up. West Hancock wasn’t going to let Eagle Grove keep them off the scoreboard at the start of the second game as they had in the first. Instead, they returned the favor, scoring 2 in the 1st, and 1 in the 2nd, while holding the Eagle Grove boys at bay. Which Eagle Grove’s guys had their fill of by the third, and they let it be known by putting 4 runners across the plate in the third, and keeping West Hancock from running round the diamond through the 3rd and 4th.
In the 5th the matchup seemed more even, with each team plating once. And likewise in the 6th, with neither team scoring. But then in the 7th West Hancock tied it up 5 to 5 by plating once, and that pushed the game into extra innings. Through an 8th, a 9th, and a 10 inning both teams refused to let the other break the tie. But as the second game in a row stretched into the 11th inning, Eagle Grove managed to break things loose with a final walkoff single by Levi langfitt to win it by a nose, 6 to 5.
