The Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk baseball team stepped outside of River Valley Conference play Tuesday and beat the Fairfield Trojans at Paul N. Bailey Field in Wellman 11-4. The Golden Hawks never trailed on the night, scoring three times in the first after capitalizing on two Trojan errors, three walks, a wild pitch and a balk, as Karson Grout, Blake Swart and Brady Weber all came around to score. Joe Hall had the only hit the frame, an RBI single. Mid-Prairie made it 5-0 with two more in the third when Swart and Weber scored, this time on an RBI ground out by Brock Harland and an RBI bunt single for Collin Miller. Fairfield got on the board with a single run in the fourth and Mid-Prairie got that right back in the bottom half when Weber drove in Alex Bean on a run scoring knock to make it 6-1. After a Trojan tally in the sixth to make it 6-2, the Golden Hawks put the game away by batting around in the seventh and scoring five times. Grout, Landry Gingerich, Weber, Harland and Gentry Bontrager all came home with Gingerich and Hall supplying the RBI hits. Fairfield sent eight to the plate in the seventh and scored twice but it wasn’t enough. After the game, Weber, Hall and Gingerich, our Golden Hawks of the game, joined the KCII postgame show live to talk about the win. Gingerich said, “We stuck to our approach at the plate. We got our pitch we wanted to drive. If not, we got a lot of walks too. My favorite at bat was probably my last one, decent one down the line and got a double. Joe (Hall) did a great job of keeping guys honest on the basepaths. ”

Hall continued, “Our two strike approach tonight was good. We only struck out twice. My favorite at bat was my second one, I went down 0-2 and drew a walk. Landry (Gingerich) was throwing strikes all night.”

Weber added, “We had a lot of guys do a good job getting on base. We had a lot of timely hitting and good base running to get around the bases and steal bags. My favorite at bat was probably my second to last one, base hit up the middle. Our pitchers know if they throw strikes, the defense will have their backs.”

The Golden Hawks collected eight hits, two each for Grout and Gingerich, one apiece for Bean, Weber, Hall and Miller with Hall driving in two runs and Gingerich, Weber and Miller one each. In his first career start, Gingerich recorded the win, going three and two thirds, allowing one hit, one run, walking one and striking out a pair. Mid-Prairie has now won six consecutive games and stands at 18-6 on the year ahead of a trip to West Liberty Thursday.