By AMELIO RODRIGUEZ
Niles Daily Star

The Niles varsity baseball team hosted the Hartford Indians on Tuesday night in the Vikings’ 2010 home opener.

It took extra innings, but Niles came away with a 13-12 victory.

The Indians came in with three games already under their belt and a record of 3-0, while the host team was playing their first contest of the season.

The Vikings scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning to jump out to an early 4-0 lead, but that lead didn’t last long.

In the top of the second inning the visitors plated five base runners, thanks mostly to five errors by the Vikings defense. The Indians only had 3 hits in the inning.

Both teams struggled defensively as they combined for 10 errors in the game, with the home team committing eight of them.

“Defensively we obviously have a lot to work on. You know, infield, outfield, and situational work. But you know, it’s what you get early on, and they’ve played three games already so they’ve been through a little more then we have,” Niles coach Mike Vota said. “They did a good job of putting the ball in play, and we didn’t make the plays, so we put ourselves in a position of chasing all day, and we don’t have the type of team that chases wel.l”

With a score of 13-12, defense obviously wasn’t the key to this game. Both teams took advantage of each other’s miscues and both teams hit the ball fairly well.

Trailing by a score of 11-9 in the bottom of the fifth inning, Niles had bases loaded when senior David Garner hit a ball to deep right field driving in all three runners. Niles had a 12-11 lead, and Garner had his second triple of the game.

The lead would change hands every inning until the sixth when Hartford scored a run in the top half of the inning to tie the score at 12. Niles was unable to capitalize in the bottom half of the inning leaving the scored tied heading into the seventh and final inning.

In the seventh inning both teams had opportunities to win the game. Hartford had the lead runner on third with two outs when Niles pitcher Alex Grishaber struck out the last batter, and gave his team the opportunity to win in their half of the inning.

Niles had a runner on second with one out and Tanner Campbell at the plate, and Garner on deck. Things were looking positive for the Vikings until the runner on second got picked off while leading off for the second out, and Campbell grounded out to second to end the inning, and send the game into extra innings.

After holding Hartford in the top half of the eighth, the Vikings took advantage with their bats in the bottom half. With the bases loaded, Chris Mangus hit a single past the second baseman for Hartford driving in Ricky Briand for the winning run.

Garner led Niles, going 4-for-5 with two triples, three runs scored and four RBIs.

Also contributing for Niles were Briand going 2-for-3 with a double, three runs scored and an RBI, and Kevin Gross who was 2-for-2 with a double, a triple, two runs scored and four RBIs.

Niles goes to 1-0 on the young season, while Hartford falls to 3-1.

“I’d have to go with survival mode on that one, the guys hung in there. We did some things well, we swung the bats decent, and we handled some offensive situations decent. Our defense was atrocious, but it’s correctable,” Vota said.

Hartford 051 411 00 – 12 8 2
Niles 403 230 01 – 13 10 8
WP – Alex Grishaber (1-0) and Shawn Holland.
LP – Koshar and Carlson
2B: (N) Ricky Briand, Kevin Gross; (H) Carlson, Koshar
3B: (N) David Garner 2, Gross