Helton's arm, Norwalk bats excel in 8-1 win over Huron

SANDUSKY — If it's not broken, don't fix it. In Monday's win over Fremont Ross, Norwalk's Noah Helton threw four innings before giving way to Carter Harp. Harp then went two innings before a scoreless seventh inning from Nate King. The Truckers followed the same formula Thursday, defeating Huron 8-1 in Sandusky Bay Conference crossover action at Sports Force Parks. The game was moved from Huron to SFP due to the amount of rain in the area recently. "There's probably not a lot of teams playing today," Norwalk coach Jason Higgins said. "I know our field wasn't playable. It's nice to get out here. (Huron coach) Dan (Lindsley) set it up and got us out here to Sports Force and got us a field. "That was two pretty good baseball teams going head-to-head there for a little bit. We were fortunate enough to break it open there." The teams exchanged runs in the first inning before the Truckers (2-0) pulled ahead in the third inning. Helton led off the inning with a single before a groundout moved him to second. It didn't matter though as Carter Harp roped a triple to center field. That scored Helton and brought an end to the day for Huron pitcher Landon Hohler. Wesley Shupe wasted little time greeting reliever Sam Cox, ripping a single up in the middle on the first pitch of the at-bat. That was more than enough support for Helton, Harp and King. After giving up a RBI triple to Grant Periat in the first inning, Helton was nearly unhittable. He only gave up a leadoff single to Jack Raglow in the third inning. But, he was wiped off the paths trying to steal second. Helton struck out three and threw just 49 pitches en route to improving to 2-0 on the mound. He threw 60 pitches in four innings in the win over Fremont Ross. "Early in the year, you want to get guys work, but you don't want to overwork them," Higgins said. "We put him on a leash where we wanted him in the 50-60 pitch range. He got us through four innings and we were really happy with that." The score remained 3-1 until Norwalk got some runs late. In the sixth inning, two walks and a single from Kaedyn Warner loaded the bases. The Truckers only mustered one run when a ball hit by Helton wasn't fielded cleanly. Cox bounced back with a line out and popup on the infield to avoid further damage. Norwalk took advantage of a similar situation in the seventh inning. Singles from Landon Ferkel and Warner helped load the bases. The Truckers made it 5-1 on a sacrifice fly from Canyon Craig. With Grady Naseman at the plate, a wild pitch brought in Warner. The throw back to Cox covering home was off, allowing Wilson to scamper around and score too. Naseman then walked, went to second on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Helton. "We have some young guys learning," Lindsley said. "We told them that this is big boy baseball now. We played a couple games, but now we're playing teams that are bigger and stronger than us. We want to compete with those teams, and we can, but it requires us to play good baseball." Huron didn't get any hits off of Harp in his two innings. Braden Hall doubled to open the seventh inning against King, but couldn't bring him in. "They got out early," Lindsley said. "I thought we answered the bell in the first inning. We kept it 3-1. I think we have a lot of young guys. They had some timely hits and we didn't. We got some guys on and had some bad situations trying to get to second. We didn't consistently hit enough." Hohler went 2 1/3 innings for the Tigers (1-1), allowing three runs on four hits. He threw 45 pitches for Huron. "Landon hasn't thrown in over a year," Lindsley said. "We just wanted to get him around 50 pitches. He'll come along in a bit. He's been dealing with an injury for a year. For him to come back, that was nice to see." Huron is back in action Friday against Tiffin Columbian, another member of the SBC Lake. The game will likely be played at Sports Force with more rain in the forecast. "Credit to coach Higgins and his staff," Lindsley said. "Where they were at a couple years ago and how they've built this, they have a nice quality group that's going to win a lot of games. They might be the best team in the area or one of the best. They're going to be really competitive with teams like Perkins." Norwalk is scheduled to travel to Marion Harding on Friday before hosting Oak Harbor on Saturday. "It's good to see that even our outs are hit hard right now," Higgins said. "Some of the guys are hitting line drives right at people. I know Canyon Craig hit a line drive to right field. The biggest thing is we're getting guys on base. We're not waiting around." Norwalk 102 001 4 — 8 11 0 Huron 100 000 0 — 1 3 1 WP: Helton (2-0). LP: Hohler (0-1). 2B: (H) Hall. 3B: (N) Harp; (H) Periat