By AMELIO RODRIGUEZ
Niles Daily Star

The Niles Vikings varsity baseball team played host to White Pigeon, Plymouth, and cross-town Brandywine on Saturday.

In the opening round match-ups Niles played White Pigeon, while Brandywine faced off with Plymouth.

On their home field the Vikings battled the Chiefs back and forth until the sixth inning when White Pigeon scored two runs to go up 9-8, and then added an insurance run in the top of the seventh inning to hold on to a 10-8 victory.

Over at Thomas Stadium, Brandywine and Plymouth scored plenty of runs, but Brandywine just couldn’t score enough as they fell 13-10.

With both of the hometown teams losing in the early games, they would have to face each other in the afternoon matchup.

Brandywine would start Joe Godfrey on the mound, while Niles would throw Ricky Briand.

Brandywine looked ready to play in the top of the first inning as they would send eight batters to the plate, scoring three of them. Kyle King got things started with a walk, and was pushed around to third on two straight fielders choice plays. Cody Udell would follow with a double to score King. After a walk to Dustin Bell, Buck Bowden would single to drive in Udell. Now with two men on, and two outs, catcher Austin Searles would line a double in the gap to score both Bell and Bowden.

The Bobcats finished their half inning with four runs on three hits, including two doubles.

The Vikings would answer in the bottom of the first with five runs of their own. Matt McLaughlin got things started with a leadoff double. The next two batters, Briand and David Garner would both reach on Brandywine errors, scoring McLaughlin. Briand and Garner would both come around to score on passed balls. After two consecutive outs, the Vikings would put together three consecutive hits, a single by Kevin Gross and back-to-back doubles by Chris Mangus and Taylor Campbell. Mangus’ double would score Gross and Campbell’s would drive in Mangus giving Niles a 5-4 advantage after one inning of play.

Niles scored their five runs on four hits, including three doubles.

Unfortunately for the Bobcats, they would only send 16 batters to the plate over the next four innings, after having sent eight to the plate in the top of the first and they would only collect three more hits, matching their first inning total.

The Vikings on the other hand would continue to hit the ball, and hit it hard as they totaled 12 hits in the game, eight of them for extra bases.

After a rocky start to the first inning, Briand settled in on the mound and pitched pretty well under the cold and windy conditions. He also contributed at the plate, scoring three runs and connecting on a double and a homerun.

The homerun was part of a four-run fourth that pushed Niles’ lead to 10-4, before the home team added four more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to end the game with a 14-4 score.

Niles improves to 6-3 on the season while the Bobcats fall to 6-7.