The Fossil Ridge High School baseball team defeated Fairview High 10-6 at home on Tuesday, April 19. This gives the Sabercats an overall record of 8-5 and a league record of 3-1. Putting Fossil second in the Front Range League behind Legacy who is 4-0 currently.

The pitching was shared with Zander Reese going two innings, Hunter Miller and Brek Benedict both pitching one, and Shane Crough going for three. The four combined for 11 strikeouts and put an Earned Run Average of 5.00.

The team put up some lackluster numbers on offense, batting .296 and only driving in 4 runs and leaving a total of 18 runners on base

However, Charlie Steensma, PO and team morale specialist said, “We’re gonna go to work at practice tomorrow. Got Boulder Thursday; good matchup there. I think we can beat them by a lot. We’re 0-0 tomorrow is what we like to say.”

Though the result of the game was a win, it was not as definite as the first game the Sabercats played against Fairview. That game ended with a final score of 15-4 ending in the 5th due to a mercy rule.

“ Last game we hadn’t seen Fairview before and we saw them as competitors so we came out aggressive and we buried them within the first couple innings,” said Nathen Kazynski, the catcher for Tuesday’s game. “I think this game since we buried their last game we were definitely complacent and thought it would be an easy role and we were wrong. They came out with a little more intensity than we had but I’m just glad we could pick it up in the later innings and get the dub”.

Fossil’s next matchup is against Boulder High School on Thursday, April 21 at home. Boulder is currently 7-8 overall and 2-2 in league, putting them 8th in league rankings. Their overall stats are a little misleading since they have played two more games than Fossil so this is not a standard comparison.

Boulder beats Fossil out in batting with a .335 average while Fossil bats .306. The Sabercats beat Boulder out in pitching with Fossil having a team ERA of 5.53 and Boulder having an ERA of 8.83. Boulder also topped Fossil on on-base percentage having an OBP of .472 while Fossil is at .444 OBP. As for our slugging percentages, Boulder beats out again because they have more games under their belt slugging .528, while fossil is slugging .488. For those who don’t know, slugging percentage is a stat that judges a hitter’s productivity by putting more weight on extra-base hits. Either way, Thursday’s game should be interesting.