The Washington Demons took home a couple wins last night over the Danville Bears.

Washington started Austin Witt on the mound for his first varsity start of the season, and some of the nerves showed as he threw eight straight balls walking to first two batters, but after a trip to the mound by head coach Nathan Miller Witt calmed down and made a 180.

Witt struck out two in the first and had one pop up. Witt went three innings and finished with five strikeouts, five walks, two runs and two earned in the 13-3 win in five innings. The first game was error filled for the Bears having at least six unofficially in just the first two innings.

Miller said Witt has great stuff, but just needs the confidence.

“He’s one of those guys as a junior that is going to return next year and we’re going to need him to fill in those shoes, but we need him to fill some shoes this year as well,” Miller said. “As he gets comfortable on the mount and adjusts to the speed of the varsity game, he has a good curve ball and has good zip on his fast ball I think last night after the first inning he really had a lot of confidence, trusted his stuff and pitched well.”

Tanner Knupp for Washington was the leading batter going 3-4, reaching base all four times and scoring three times.

The second game was even better, as the Demons won 18-0 in four innings, which extends their win streak to seven.

The streak will need to give a lot of confidence to the Demons tonight though as they will face their old rival Mt. Pleasant at home tonight. The last time the Demons saw Mt. Pleasant, Washington beat them 12-0, only to be beaten 10-0 in the second game.

Mt. Pleasant is 15-9 and hitting .310 as a team. Their pitching staff has a 3.52 ERA and opponents are hitting .247 off of them.

Miller says these are two different teams playing tonight from the last time they met.

“Both teams are playing a lot better than we were at that time too, I don’t think I have ever seen that happen before [teams trading ten run rule shutouts],” Miller said. “I think both teams are playing a lot better baseball, more consistent baseball, and tonight there is the x factor that both teams are going to have to battle, and that is the heat.”

The heat that Miller mentioned is supposed to reach upwards to 100 degrees and feel like 110 today.

You can catch game two of this match up between the Demons and Panthers on AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com under radio plus with Pregame starting at about 7:30 and first pitch at 7:45. The one to count on for local sports coverage is KCII.