ND gets rough treatment from district foes

By Will Dickins
The North Delta baseball team failed to take advantage of their first two district games at home Monday and Tuesday.
They lost to the Indianola Academy Colonels 21-6 Monday then lost to the Bayou Academy Colts 10-0 Tuesday.  Both teams proved to be tough competition for North Delta who is still scrambling from multiple injuries and losses that have happened in the last few weeks.
Monday night North Delta hung around with the District favorite Indianola Academy for five innings before the Colonels caught fire with a 12 run sixth inning to put any hope for a Green Wave win out of reach.  The fifth inning ended with the score at 9-5 Indianola.
The game was push and tug for the majority of the game with Indianola jumping out in front, but North Delta would bounce back each time to keep it within striking distance.  It was a quick 6-0 but then came the Green Wave with three runs in the third inning to make it 6-3 thanks in large to a two RBI (Runs Batted In) double from Jones Montgomery.
Following the same pattern, Indianola jumped back out to a six point lead 9-3 before North Delta answered with two runs of their own to make it 9-5. This time it was Zach Adams plating two runs on a double down the right field line.
As stated earlier, the next scoring output would be the dagger that finally put the Green Wave bats to rest.  Twelve runs will do that.  It was not errors or mistakes by North Delta.  Indianola started to find holes and smash the ball all over the field. Before long, it was 21-5 making the game look like a complete blowout by the Colonels.
North Delta did score one more run in the bottom of the sixth with Luke Daniels driving in Cole Devazier.  That would be all she wrote for this one with Indianola starting out district play 1-0.
One positive thing from the night is that the Junior Varisty team completed a comeback and beat the Colonels 6-5 after being down 5-0 until the fourth inning.  North Delta surged back with five runs in the bottom of that fourth inning to tie things up 5-5.
In that inning,  Drake Barton and Ryan Gibson both earned RBI’s before Trace Stokes drove in the final RBI of the inning.  Trace Stokes and Atkins Elliot both moved up from junior high with the injuries and need for a catcher on the high school team.
The very next inning Ian Cole found a way on to lead things off.  Eli Robb then bounced him over to third on a single to left field. This set up Brunson Wolfe with the winning run at third base and the infield playing in two stop the run from getting home.  Wolfe then hit the ball to third base causing Cole to sprint home.  The ball got to home plate on time but was thrown low and to the left of the catcher as it flew into the backstop.  That was ball game.  North Delta came from behind and scored six runs in two innings winning 6-5.
Bayou 10, ND 0
The Green Wave looked to rebound the next night against Bayou Academy but failed to show the same mentality that came the night before.  Bayou jumped out to a 2-0 lead and kept piling on before it was 10-0 in the sixth inning causing the game to be over.
North Delta struggled to find a way on base for most of the night only earning two hits and striking out 14 times.  It is hard to find a way to win no matter how your defense is when the strikeout to hit ratio is that drastic.  The two hits did come from Lige Simmerman and Luke Daniels who both hit ground balls up the middle for singles.
North Delta looks to rebound with St. Joseph, Kirk, and Indianola games being next week. The game versus Saint Joseph will be at home.