March 18, 2024

Raiders cruise past Ballard

CMB baseball team honors Brian McWhirter by pounding Bombers

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COLLINS — When things are going well, it’s best to not change a thing.

Collins-Maxwell/Baxter junior Brady Kemp is taking that philosophy to a whole new level.

Kemp came into Thursday’s game against Ballard hitting just under .500 for the season.

After making his daily trip to a local gas station, Kemp cranked out three more hits, and the Raiders pounded the Bombers, 11-0, in five innings.

Kemp finished 3-for-3 with three runs and two RBIs. CMB had 11 hits on the night, while the Bombers committed an uncharacteristically high number of errors.

“Usually, I do the same routine every day,” Kemp said. “I stop by our gas station and grab a little snack, maybe a Mountain Dew. I have kind of gotten my groove lately.”

The win over a solid Class 3A Ballard team was just what CMB needed after losing 2-1 in extra innings against North Polk on Monday and then falling 2-0 to Prairie City-Monroe on Wednesday.

The Bombers helped the Raiders’ cause by committing six errors. Ballard (14-5) came into the game with just 14 errors in 18 games.

“It’s a morale booster. This one should give us a little confidence heading into next week,” CMB coach Max Seeman said. “They booted it around a lot more than I thought they would. Ballard made good contact at the plate, but we were in the right spots. Everything came together tonight.”

Everything coming together included Nate Bishop on the mound. The Raider senior came into the game with an earned run average of 5.14, but he stayed unbeaten on the season after tossing a two-hitter.

Bishop walked five on the night, but he kept the Bombers off balance with a good mixture of pitches. The defense made plays behind him, too.

“The biggest thing for me is to rely on my defense. They are there for a reason,” Bishop said. “They did a nice job behind me tonight. I got ahead in the counts and mixed up my pitches pretty well.”

CMB played the game without starting catcher Hunter McWhirter, who has not played since Monday because of the death of his father Brian. The Raiders honored the McWhirter family after the game by releasing several orange balloons into the sky. Brian McWhirter died of kidney cancer last weekend.

The Raiders went down in order in the first inning.

Then took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when senior Aric Broderick laid down a suicide squeeze bunt that scored Kemp, who began the inning with a single.

CMB (9-8) sent 11 batters to the plate in the third inning.

Junior Tucker Maxwell began the frame with a hard line drive that bounced over the head of Ballard shortstop Jonny Luster. After a fly out to right field, the Raiders collected four consecutive singles that resulted in four runs.

Broderick and Bishop then hit two-out RBI singles to plate two more runs, and that gave CMB a 7-0 lead. The Raiders had seven hits and Ballard committed three errors in the inning.

The fourth inning began with back-to-back singles by junior Brady Ross and senior Brady Stover. Another Brady, this time Kemp, laced a two-run double that caromed off the fence in left-center field.

That put CMB up 9-0 and then Kemp and junior Creighton Caple scored later in the inning on two Ballard errors.

“He sees the ball well. And when he hits it he hits it hard,” Seeman said of Kemp. “He swings hard and gets his money’s worth every single time. Whatever he is doing, he should keep doing it, and tell the other guys what he’s doing, too.”

Ballard had at least one base runner in every inning except the fifth.

The Bombers started the first inning with a double and a hit by pitch, but Bishop (3-0) got out of the jam. He stranded another Ballard at second base in the second inning, left three on base after walking the bases loaded in the third and then stranded two more runners he put on with walks in the fourth.

“It’s a big win. We talked last night about putting more focus into one pitch, one at-bat and one game at a time,” Bishop said. “It was nice to get that ‘W’ tonight.”

Besides Kemp’s perfect night at the plate, Ross and Stover both had two hits and two runs scored, while Broderick drove in a pair of runs. Senior Brad Ritter had one hit, one walk and one hit by pitch.

“This is a big confidence boost,” Kemp said. “We needed this one.”

The win ended a three-game losing streak for CMB. The Raiders play at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Colfax-Mingo.