Green Wave downs Heritage 6-3

By Will Dickins
North Delta played baseball again Tuesday night against Heritage Academy winning 6-3 after a quick turnaround after beating West Memphis the night before.
Hunter Houston started pitching for the Green Wave in what ended up being a three-headed effort by him, Shawn Payne and Luke Daniels.  They limited Heritage to three runs on five hits to help seal the victory.
North Delta struck first in the bottom of the first inning with Brandon Henson coming home on yet another Daniels RBI hit. Having him at the cleanup spot is allowing multiple scoring opportunities with runners on base.
Heritage answered with two runs in the second inning. With two outs, North Delta had their first error of the season and only error of the game. The error showed how important defense is as Heritage scored two runs on two outs afterwards. No more errors were committed in the game resulting in only one run.
Coach Bill McGee’s strategy is to throw strikes, let the defense work, and make the other team earn their runs.  It all relies on good defense.  North Delta has that.
The Green Wave were scoreless in the second and third innings but came back in the fourth with three runs.  Cole Devazier came in as a pinch hitter and ripped the first pitch he saw up the middle for a single.  With two outs, Jones Montgomery had his second single of the night and moved Devazier to third.  A passed ball scored Devazier.  Brandon Henson and Lige Simmerman earned walks to load the bases for Daniels.  He delivered again with a ground ball off of the Pitcher’s glove for an RBI single.  Luke Noah followed with an RBI walk to finish the inning’s scoring.
The score was now 4-2.  Heritage Academy got one more run in the fifth inning to make it 4-3.
North Delta needed to put them away and score insurance runs and did just that scoring two in the fifth to make it a 6-3 game.
Daniels then came in to pitch and received the save allowing no runs on no hits with two strikeouts.
Shawn Payne got the win on the mound.
North Delta had to dig deep to pull out the second win on the young season, but defense looked to be they key.  With another perfect game defensively, the score would have been 6-1 shows just how much each pitch matters defensively.
North Delta won 6-3 and now looks to get another win against Delta Academy at home next Thursday.  Go Wave.