Kale Jensen left no doubt for the Hastings Sodbusters baseball team.
With the game tied at 2-all in the fifth inning, the Central City native blasted a home run to give the Sodbusters a lead they would not give up. They scored three runs in the inning to help them take a 6-2 win over the Badlands Big Sticks Wednesday at Ryder Park.
The Independence League game was played at Ryder Park because of Duncan Field in Hastings, the Sodbusters home ball park, was being used for the Class A National Division State Tournament.
The home run was part of a 2 for 5 day that included a double with three RBIs for Jensen.
It came after Big Sticks made an error with two outs in the inning. Jensen said he knew what pitch was coming when he hit the home run ball.
“It was a change-up down. I figured that’s what I was going to get because that’s usually the pitch they throw to me in every series that we play,” he said. “That’s about it. I knew the ball was gone immediately after I hit that.”
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Hastings interim coach Vinny Carone, filling in for head coach Joel Schipper who was facing a one-game suspension, said Jensen did a great job of taking advantage after the error to keep the inning going.
“That’s why he’s in that spot in the lineup (the third batter) because he’s someone that can get the ball over the fence at any point in the game,” Carone said. “Shires getting on base on the error was huge to keep the inning. That was the turning point in the ballgame.”
After the Jensen home run, Markos Cabranes hit a double. Two batters reached after that and Landon Gaz brought Cabranes home with a RBI single.
“That inning kind of made the guys relax a little bit at the plate,” Carone said. “There was really no turning back at that point.”
Jensen reached base in the seventh as he hit a double to open the inning. After Cabranes reached on a walk, Nick Jones hit a single and Jensen was sent home, but was tagged out at the plate by Badlands’ catcher Royce Vandine.
But that didn’t bother the Sodbusters as Anthony Chavez hit a RBI single to score Cabranes to increase the lead.
Hastings had a chance to increase the lead even more as they had the bases loaded with one out but Big Sticks relief pitcher Brennan Haman struck out the last two batters.
Even though the Sodbusters committed three errors, they still made some plays on defense, especially by Layne Shiers in the ninth inning. With a runner on, Troy Berg hit a deep fly ball to center field, but Shiers made a catch at the wall to help Hastings get out of trouble.
“It’s been up and down for the defense this season for sure,” Carone said. “We’ve been getting better with it even though today wasn’t great but we still made some tough defensive plays that might have been hits. And Layne has been very good at centerfield as he covers a lot of ground. He was able to take away a two-run home run and gets us out of a jam.”
Jensen was one of four players to record two hits. Shirers, Cabranes and Nick Jones were the other players.
Carone said even though the Sodbusters left 12 runners on base, he was pleased that they had 12 hits.
“We really had great at-bats and hit the ball hard all game,” he said. “We needed to get a couple more hits to get those runners home but we did what we needed to do to get the win.”
Fred Juden got the win for Hastings as he pitched 6 1/3 innings, giving up five hits and had six strikeouts. Alex Fichter came on in relief and gave up no hits and had three strikeouts.
Jensen said he liked playing in Ryder Park, even though it was only his second time playing in the ballpark when he played on Central City’s legion team one summer.
“It’s definitely a smaller park than Duncan Field is but I like it,” Jensen said.
The victory was the first over Badlands this season as Hastings was 0-6 against them. Carone said it was nice to get a win against the Big Sticks. The two teams play a doubleheader at 5:45 p.m. Thursday at Duncan Field.
“They’ve had our number this year so it’s good to get a win against them,” Carone said.
Hastings 6, Badlands 2
Badlands; 010; 010; 000—2; 5; 1
Hastings; 100; 130; 10X—6; 12; 3
WP-Juden. LP-Cupic. 2B-BAD: Carey, Yuran, Procter. HAS: Jensen, Gill, Cabranes. HR-HAS: Jensen.