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The Columbus High School baseball team is attempting to finish the regular season out strong as they ride a five-game winning streak into their rematch with Hallettsville that could function as the clincher for the District Championship. The Cards were in the midst of a twoman race with the Brahmas for the top spot in the standings, but Hallettsville suffered an unexpected loss to the Industrial Cobras last week to take their third district defeat of the season. Since Columbus has just two losses in the district season, their only job is to find a win against the Brahmas and extend their winning streak to six. If the Cards can recreate some of the success they had in big wins against Edna and Rice last week, they have a strong opportunity to potentially claim the district title outright.
Vs Edna, W, 5-0
The Cards relied on their quality defense against the Cowboys as the teams battled through a tight, scoreless game through three innings. Neither team could find much momentum on the bases as each team had relatively quick half-innings on their offensive possessions. Columbus finally made their way to scoring position in the fourth inning as they brought in their first two runs of the game to take the lead. The Cards added three more insurance runs in the sixth inning as they held up on the defensive end to hold their opponents to a shutout. Columbus took advantage of several Edna errors and wild pitches to walk in their scores from third.
Ryan Lewis and Josh Everett led the team in hits with two apiece. Logan Hinson picked up the Cards’ only RBI as many of their scores were a result of wild pitches or other mistakes by the Edna defense.
Dylan Zajicek had a strong start on the mound, pitching the whole game and finishing with eight strikeouts and allowing just four hits.
Vs Rice, W, 18-2
Columbus took on Rice for the second time this season and had similar results to their first bout earlier this year. The Cards racked up hit-after-hit as they climbed to the double- digit hitting performance. They did not find much trouble scoring from the base path either as they scored multiple runs in nearly every inning, including a game-high eight runs in the fifth before the game finished on a mercy- rule.
While the Cards had one of their hottest hitting games of the season, no one had a better day than Ryan Lewis who picked up a hit in each of his four atbats. He was a homerun away from completing the cycle as he had a double, a triple and two singles in his game. He also batted in six runs to lead the team in RBIs. Conner Geisler added two hits that led to four RBIs as he made a significant impact on the offense as well. Trevor Berger and Dylan Zajicek got two hits each to round out the rest of the hitting for Columbus.
Berger also picked up a quality start on the mound with six strikeouts in just over three innings before being relieved by closer Kase Weishuhn.
