GREEN BAY – Things couldn’t have started much better for the Notre Dame Academy Tritons baseball team against De Pere on May 6.
The Tritons sent 13 batters to the plate, scored seven runs and collected six hits in the bottom of the first inning at Harold Neville Field in Green Bay.
Senior left-handed pitcher Jack Frelich did the rest for the Tritons in the 7-3 Fox River Classic Conference (FRCC) victory.
Frelich, who will attend MSOE to play baseball next year, scattered five hits in his five-plus innings of work.
He walked two batters and struck out three before giving way to Adam Guyette in the sixth inning with two Redbirds on and nobody out.
Guyette got the Tritons out of the inning by inducing a popout, a groundout and a flyout to end the threat.
“I just went out and attacked the hitters,” Frelich said. “One of my coaches told me to get ahead and stay ahead (in the count), so that’s what I did. I tried to keep the hitters guessing by mixing in some of my pitches.”
Frelich said his fastball/curve combination was working well.
“I’d also throw in a slider once in a while,” he said.
Frelich said when his team scored seven runs in the first inning, that took the pressure off him.
“The main thing was just throwing strikes and keeping the pressure on De Pere,” he said.
In the marathon first inning by the Tritons (9-6 overall, 6-4 FRCC), they got RBI hits from Ty Bumgardner, Cameron Michiels and Tripp Wroblewski.
Guyette also drove in another run with a sacrifice fly.
“We had been playing really well early in the year, but then we went into a lull,” Notre Dame Coach Jared Barker said. “Getting a big win like this against a quality team like De Pere gives us tons of confidence moving forward. The kids played fantastic today.”
The Redbirds (10-2, 8-2), who came into the game as the No. 7-ranked team in the state in Division 1, didn’t help their cause by committing three errors and issuing two bases on balls in the opening inning.
De Pere committed four errors total in the game, while Notre Dame played flawlessly in the field.
Barker said despite the big first-inning outburst, he couldn’t sit easy in the dugout.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that against a team like De Pere, a six-run lead still isn’t comfortable,” he said. “Jack pitched really well, and the kids played great defense behind him.”
Redbirds pitcher Isaac Poehlman had an RBI double in the top of the first inning before Mason Sequin also knocked in a run in the third with a double.
Caden Krutz plated De Pere’s final run in the sixth with an RBI groundout.
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