newsminer.com

Photo by John Wagner

The Lathrop Malemutes had been baseball nomads, finding themselves one day practicing in their gym, another day they’re in a warehouse, another in a parking lot.

Friday, they finally got to take the field.

After poor weather wrecked havoc with the early-season baseball schedule, the Malemutes kicked off the Interior high school season with an 11-1 triumph over Delta Junction at Arco Field.

“It’s great. We’ve been practicing in the gym, in the warehouses, working out at the athletic club for about two months,” Lathrop senior catcher Karl Ott said. “It’s great to finally get outside.”

And to get the season started on the right foot.

“It was better than expected,” Ott said. “We’ve got a really young team, a lot of freshmen and sophomores. We did a little better than I expected.”

The Malemutes received strong outings from Kyle Olson, Jake Karl and Adam Pokrivnak, while Ott provided the big blast of the night, breaking the game open with a three-run homer in the second.

“I thought we looked pretty good for having only been outside twice on this field,” Lathrop coach Sam Morton said. “I’ve got a lot of freshmen, a lot of underclassmen trying to shake off those jitters.”

Olson had jitters when he saw the first Delta batter step into the batter’s box.

A broken thumb kept Olson off the mound last year, so he had rust of his own to shake off. But after giving up Donny Bunselmeier’s game-opening double, Olson settled in to record four strikeouts in two innings of work.

“It was nice to finally get back on the field,” he said. “A couple games got canceled, finally got out here, feels nice to be outside.”

Karl and Pokrivnak then came in to combine for nine strikeouts while allowing one run over the final four innings of the mercy-rule shortened game.

“All three of them did a good job for me,” Morton said. “I’m really proud of those guys.”

And Morton’s going to be using all three this season.

“We’re just going to have to pitch by committee. No one is going to pitch to the point of getting hurt,” he said. “We’re just coming out and I want them to be able to play this season without thinking all the load is on one person’s shoulders. Everyone’s going to get a chance to get in and do their best.”

As for the Huskies, they’re trying to season a young squad, which features players taking the field for the first time since tee-ball.

“It was a good experience for them,” Delta coach Dave Schmidt said. “They’ve picked up on the basic stuff, and they’ve seen some live pitching other than the old coaches now.”

Soft-tossing senior Garrett Smith had the Malemutes off balance in the first with his array of off-speed pitches, but they got to him in a five-run second capped by Ott’s big blast.

Photo by John Wagner

A wild pitch brought in second baseman Torgen Soderland to put Lathrop on the scoreboard, and Trevor Evans scored on Bobby Marcinkawski’s sacrifice fly to shallow left field for a 2-0 Lathrop lead.

Ott then plated Pokrivnak and L.J. Sotelo with a 2-2 liner over the fence in right-center.

“I’d say it was lucky. I didn’t do anything else the whole game,” said Ott, who finished 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. “I eased up and made contact with the ball.”

Sotelo and Marcinkawski scored on a passed ball in the fourth, and Bryan Gundersen’s base-clearing double in the bottom of the sixth gave the Malemutes their 10-run margin.

Smith scored Delta’s only run in the top of the sixth, scoring after an errant throw on a stolen base.