Hebron breaks through against Boone

Updated: May 4, 2011 11:44PM

VALPARAISO — Hebron made two fourth-inning unearned runs stand up, downing Boone Grove 2-1 in a Porter County Conference matchup Wednesday afternoon.

Lefty Damon Wallace allowed only three hits and seven Boone Grove baserunners while striking out seven batters.

“This is a big win for our program; we haven’t been able to beat them for a while,” said Hawks coach John Steinhilber. “We talked about this as a staff and we’ve been getting good results from our pitchers. We weren’t even close to pulling Damon, he wasn’t anywhere near his pitch count.”

The Wolves (11-5, 3-2) struck first in the bottom of the second. Cody Poynter coaxed a leadoff walk, one of four allowed by Wallace on the day. Dean Hill followed with a double in the gap, giving Boone Grove men on second and third with no outs. Jake Wright then had an RBI groundout, scoring Poynter. Wallace then decided to help himself out with the glove, as he made a diving catch on Jason Sawa’s suicide-squeeze attempt. He then threw to third baseman Kyle Joyce to double up Hill, who had already crossed the plate.

The Hawks (8-6, 4-2) took advantage of two Wolves errors in the top of the fourth and scored the only two runs they would need. Cody Hayes reached on a throwing error on a groundball to short. Alex Anderson then singled Hayes to third. Hebron then pulled off a double steal, allowing Hayes to tie the game at 1-1. An infield RBI single by Cameron Wignall scored Anderson for what proved to be the game winner.

It was the same old story for Zach Wein, the tough-luck loser for Boone Grove. He went the distance, striking out 10 and allowing just five hits.

“Every time (Wein) throws for us, he pitches his brains out,” said Wolves coach Rollie Thill. “I just don’t get it. We give them two unearned runs and we can only score one. We just don’t score runs for him when he pitches for some reason.”

The Wolves had one last-gasp chance in the bottom of the seventh. After a leadoff fly-out, Wallace walked Hill and Wright back-to-back, putting the winning run on first. He then got Sawa to pop up to first and struck out A.J. Mosier to end the game.

“’Yeah, I had tons of nerves going into that last inning,” Wallace said. “I used all of my pitches but I didn’t really have my curveball until the second inning. I just used my change-up a lot to keep them off balance.”

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