Hawks baseball gets another shutout win, Mescher takes on state golf

Woodward-Granger baseball and softball found a couple of good performances this week to keep growing the rest of the summer. (Note: Events covered May 22-28)

Baseball (3-1)

Woodward suffered its first loss of the season in a split doubleheader with Earlham but also showed some great pop with a couple of double-digit wins this week.

After starting the year with a brilliant shutout win behind Brody Nardini’s arm, the Hawks were in search of more firepower and found it in a 12-0 win at Panorama. All but one Hawks was able to cross home plate in that lopsided conference duel. Collin and Brody Nardini enjoyed two round-trip tickets while also driving in two runs themselves. They also combined for four no-hit innings while Brody Worley pitched the other three frames and allowed a single hit while striking out seven Panthers.

Though game stats were not compiled in time for publishing this week, the Hawks also won 14-4 and lost 6-5 against Earlham two days later on Thursday and won 4-3 against Carroll on Friday.

Softball (0-4)

The Hawks started their season with a four-game slate with losses across the board. Playing in back-to-back days, the tour began with a 15-5 loss at Panorama followed by a 16-4 home loss against Southeast Warren and capped with a doubleheader loss to Earlham.

Isolating those wins by themselves, the Hawks are still looking to get something moving. But compared to last year, Woodward is already on chapter two.

Having lost just one full-time starter from last season’s 8-21 team (albeit the team’s core leader Chloe Houge), the Hawks have a mountain of rising talent that showed promise later in the season. It wasn’t until the 10th game that they picked up their first W, and six games before they scored more than two runs.

They got that out of the way in the first two games, already. 

Of the Hawks that have gone up to bat in those games, six scored. That was led by Jaidyn Achenbach’s three runs, picking up where she left off in her stellar eighth-grade season where she led the team with a .390 batting average. And newcomer Maddie Rodgers was also been a key contributor, getting four hits in five at-bats. 

Girls Golf

Lindsay Mescher took part in the two-day state meet on Thursday and Friday, and placed 58th among the 73 girls in the Class 1A finals. Mescher finished day one with a score of 102 and hit 120 on Friday for a combined score of 222.