If there has been one team that’s been a thorn in the side of South Arkansas College during their two years of playing baseball, it’s National Park College.
The Nighthawks have won five of the nine meetings between the schools, and National Park was one of three schools to either split or win a series against SouthArk last year during their run to the Region 2 crown.
Today, the Stars and Nighthawks renew acquaintances with the start of a three-game series.
National Park hosts the opener with a 5 p.m. start before the series shifts to El Dorado for a Saturday doubleheader with an 11 a.m. start.
The Nighthawks (10-8-1, 1-2) enter having lost their first Region 2 series to Arkansas-Rich Mountain last week.
SouthArk (11-10, 1-2) has a two-game winning streak after winning Game 3 of their series against SAU Tech to salvage one win in their first Region 2 series before topping Arkansas State-Three Rivers 19-4 at Henderson State on Tuesday.
National Park has one of the top pitchers in the conference in sophomore Eli Hutcherson (4-1, 2.10 ERA), who already has three complete games and one shutout in six starts. In 30 innings of work, Hutcherson has allowed just 19 hits, walked seven and has struck out 31.
Brian Raitz (2-0, 2.08 ERA), a freshman, has 15 strikeouts in 13 innings, while fellow freshman Arthur Perez (2-1, 4.15 ERA) has two saves in eight appearances and has 22 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings.
Carter Gaston (1-0, 1.76 ERA), a sophomore, has allowed only eight hits in 15 1/3 innings with 16 strikeouts.
Offensively, sophomore Jaiden Ryals has a .478 average in 23 at-bats for the Nighthawks.
Freshman Ryan McClure is hitting .455 with seven RBIs in 22 at-bats, while sophomore Jimbo Batchelor (.320 BA, 1 HR, 14 RBIs) is off to a solid start.
Sophomore Pedro Martinez leads the team with 18 RBIs, while freshman Wesley Campbell leads National Park in home runs with three.
Against Arkansas-Rich Mountain, National Park lost the opener 5-2 in 10 innings before Hutcherson went the distance in a 5-4, eight-inning win in Game 2. The Nighthawks then squandered a 3-0 lead in Game 3 in an 8-5 loss.
For SouthArk coach Cannon Lester, National Park’s pitching staff will provide a stern test for his hitters.
“I think it starts with their starting pitchers,” Lester said. “They have two or three of them that are pretty good. They’ve got a couple of guys in the bullpen. Hutcherson was there last year and he can really pitch. He’s a three-pitch guy that can run it up to 91, 92 (miles an hour). They’ve got another starter I think that’s been 93, 94, so I think we’re going to have to be really disciplined, stay on top of the fastball and hopefully get their starters out of there. I think we can attack with our pitchers, but their hitters are solid.
“We need to put pressure on their defense. I think their pitching staff is one of the better ones we’re going to face, probably more comparable to Pearl River and East Central that we’ve faced. That will be a good challenge for us. They’ve always played us tough. It’s like SAU Tech, it’s kind of a rivalry game. We’ve played them the most since we’ve been here, so it should be a good series.”
Lester said the rotation will be the same this weekend as it was for SAU Tech with Brett Foss (1-4, 5.29 ERA) starting Game 1 with Ryan Ursery (4-2, 5.75 ERA) slated to pitch Game 2 and Colin Reed (2-0, 3.85 ERA) going in Game 3.
Against SAU Tech, the Stars didn’t generate much offense in the first two games of the series, falling 3-0 in Game 1 and 8-2 in Game 2 while being held to just six hits total.
However, Game 3 was an avalanche of offense for the Stars, who had 21 hits in a 26-7 win.
Foss pitched well in taking the loss in Game 1, allowing two unearned run in seven innings with two walks and eight strikeouts.
Asher Hastings and Sawyer Pritchard combined on a two-hitter with 13 strikeouts for the Rockets.
“It’s kind of interesting,” Lester said. “On Thursday, Foss threw the ball great. It’s 0-0 going into the eighth, and I think we mishandled a bunt. They bunt again, we make a great play with the catcher, throw the ball to second and drop the ball. It made it first and second, I think they bunted again, and we threw it away at first and they ended up scoring two runs off Foss.
“Their first guy, a lefty, he has really good stuff. We had a really good plan against him. He’s hard to string together hits against, but I think in five innings we had five walks and maybe four hit by pitches. We had the bases loaded two or three times, we just couldn’t get that hit. Then they brought in a guy at the end, and my hat’s off to him. He pitched really good, changed it up, got us on our front foot a little bit. They got a big hit there, we didn’t make a couple of plays, and they ended up pulling away.”
In Game 2, the Rockets jumped out to an 8-0 lead, knocking out Ursery after the freshman worked 1 2/3 innings.
Jacob Key fired a four-hitter to give SAU Tech their second straight win.
“The first game there, Ursery’s been throwing the ball well, we came out of the gate and walked the first two, just didn’t get the job done,” Lester said. “They get a big hit, we walk one more, they get another big hit and then we made a big error after the hit that makes the wheels start turning. They had a really good approach against him. That’s the first time we played there at SAU Tech, and they have a huge center field. I think it’s 405, and the kid they threw against us threw a lot of strikes. We hammered some balls, a lot better than we did the day before, but they got caught.
In Game 3, Kelvin Battles got a big hit in the first to get the Stars going.
“I just really challenged them,” Lester said. “We started KJ Battles in the second game, and he got a big hit with the bases loaded in the first, which is what we needed. We ended up with 21 hits. We hit the ball well the whole game. You’d like to see more of that. That’s not going to happen every game, but it’s in there. I think our pitching is starting to come around. I really like where it’s headed. We need a little tougher at-bats, and we’ve got to handle the baseball. That’s a big thing. We’ve just got to go do it. We’ll get a good test with National Park.”
Ty Simonelli and Alex Showalter homered in the Game 3 win with the latter driving in six runs as part of a four-hit game.
Reed struck out eight over four innings of work to pick up the win.
The offensive surge continued on Tuesday with the Stars banging out 18 hits against Arkansas State-Three Rivers.
Simonelli homered for the second straight game to raise his total to six on the season. His 21 RBIs also leads the team.
Gabe Kuttenkuler has gone 6-for-8 with eight RBIs in his last two games. The freshman hit his second home run in Tuesday’s win.
The Stars used five pitchers on Tuesday with John Demcher, the third SouthArk pitcher, picking up his first win of the season with two scoreless innings.
Although the Stars have been up and down, Lester believes his team can put everything together.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Lester said. “It’s right there for us to be taken. We’ll put our pitching staff up against anybody’s, so that’s always good. We’ve just got to handle the ball a little bit better. We’ve got to put a little more pressure on teams. We’re a little all-or-nothing right now in the box, so we need to put together more quality at-bats there.
“Sometimes I think we’re up there trying to hit a five-run homer when it doesn’t exist and guys just putting a little too much pressure on themselves. You always hope this is the game. We haven’t had an offensive output like that yet, so that’s always fun. Maybe that will get the guys going a little bit, see that it’s in there and hopefully we can start playing a little more consistent in all three phases of the game.”
Lester said he is expecting Dawson Szymanski to play after he missed last week due to an illness.
“I think Dawson will be back,” Lester said. “He came to practice and he looks pretty good. It will be good to have him back in the lineup.”
With Szymanski out, freshman Tanner Powell went 3-for-4 and scored four runs in Game 3.
“Tanner Powell came off the bench and had three hits and hit four balls hard,” Lester said. “He actually laid down a bunt and stole two bases on the day we got shutout. He came in and did a good job.”
Beau Kuttenkuler and Justin Szymanski also didn’t make the trip to Camden due to illness, but Lester said the Stars’ depth proved to be crucial.
“Beau and Justin, our two first basemen, got sick, so they didn’t get to go on Saturday,” Lester said. “We put Yadi (Canales) over there, and he played a good first base. We’ve got that option now. He’s caught really well too, so I think Gavin (Murphy) and him have solidified themselves as our two best defensive catchers. I think Jacob (Ambriz) is going to get it going in the DH spot. We’ve got the pieces there, we’ve just got to put it all together.”
Lester said Szymanski won't play this weekend due to illness and Yadi Canales is also out after injuring his ankle in Tuesday's win.
The injury news got even worse for the Stars with freshman shortstop Kenner Lauterbach being ruled out for the rest of the year due to needing surgery. He will take a medical redshirt.
“It’s a tough blow losing Kenner,” Lester said. “He was our most consistent player this fall both offensively and defensively. I hate it for him and his family, but look forward to seeing him next year at full go.He has a lot of playing left to do, so we don’t want to risk anything with him. We have some middle infielders that are ready to step up and be the guy.”
With Lauterbach sidelined, Lester said Battles could take over at shortstop with Showalter moving to second base, but there are other options available.
“We could slide him to shortstop and move Showalter to second where he feels more comfortable,” Lester said. “Chase Irby had some big hits in there too, but KJ brings a little something different to the table than they do. He’s uber-athletic, can go make every play, it’s just can he make the normal plays. He hit a ball off the 405 sign, and then he might watch three down the middle, so the athleticism is in there. I think he gets a lot of shots to take over one of those positions.”
It’s not often pitchers get to bat at the collegiate level, but Connor Pierce and Seth Gray each got an at-bat in Game 3 against SAU Tech, and Demcher got a single and a walk in two trips to the plate in Tuesday’s win.
“I think all pitchers want to hit and all hitters think they can pitch,” Lester said. “We were trying to move some guys around. We had three guys out sick, so we didn’t have our normal position players there. I was trying to get guys in some spots. I was trying to get Yadi behind the plate, so I was like, ‘OK, who are we going to put at first?’ So we moved Tanner, our left fielder, to first. It’s like, ‘OK, we don’t have another position player, so who used to hit that has a shot?’ All of them want to hit. It was kind of getting away from them. Connor is a great teammate. He came in as a two-way and before he had elbow surgery, I had him hitting in our three hole. He can really hit.
“I was like, ‘Hey, we’ll give Connor an at-bat.’ Of course, Connor probably hits the second hardest ball of the day, about 105 up the middle on the second pitch he sees. He scores a run and comes back into the dugout and tells our hitters it’s that’s easy. That was fun. Seth Gray gets up there and hits a ball about 375 and 100 miles an hour that was just foul. Those guys got at-bats, and I think that’s something they will always remember.”