By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Aurora entered the week ranked second in Class 4 and Hollister could soon join the Houn’ Dawgs in the top 10.
But it was Aurora that proved its worth in Tuesday’s Big 8 baseball opener as junior Trey Mulholland pitched a gem and Aurora snapped Hollister’s 10-game winning streak with a 5-0 home victory.
Mullholland scattered five hits and walked two while striking out eight in seven innings of work to earn the win. He threw just 84 pitches.
“I think it was our mound work,” Aurora coach James Hoffman said. “Trey Mulholland was very efficient, was able to mix his pitches and threw all of his pitches for strikes any time he wanted to. They’re a really good offensive team and for him to hold them scoreless and keep them off balance…”
Hollister coach Trent Oxenreider agreed, saying the Houn’ Dawgs were “much more efficient” on the mound early in the game.
“He did a very good job of keeping us off balance and making pitches he needed to when he needed to,” he said. “He was just better than us.”
Facing a Tigers team averaging nearly 10 runs per game, Mulholland only faced jams in the first and seventh innings. A single by Konner Hatfield and a walk by Landon Richards put two runners on with one out in the first but Mulholland retired the next 11 he faced and got out of the inning with two fly outs.
“First inning you don’t score when you’re the visitor and that kind of set the tone offensively,” Oxenreider said. “We’ve been pretty good and today we weren’t good but you really tip your cap to their pitcher, he did a very good job keeping us off balance. If you look back at the game I think they made plays when they needed to, they made pitches when they needed to and they hit the ball when they needed to and we didn’t today.”
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Hollister (11-2, 0-1) didn’t have another baserunner until the fifth when Clay Kemp sliced a double to left. He advanced to third with one out but was stranded there. The visitors had another runner in the sixth but Richards lined out to first and Hayze Hoffman stepped on the bag for a double play.
Aurora (11-1, 1-0) scored two in the first as Richards battled his control early. Jaesik Friggle led off and swatted the second pitch he saw over the right field wall for a home run. Aaron Fisher and Carson Barr followed with walks and Mulholland doubled in a run with a blast to the left field wall.
Fisher and Barr led off the third with back-to-back walks and a single by Mulholland made it 3-0.
Clayton Reed walked in the fourth and Friggle followed with a double. Fisher then hit a grounder to the pitcher but was safe when the throw got past the first baseman. That scored two more.
“We want them hunting fastballs and that’s what we did,” Hoffman said. “We kind of took his fastball away. He was able to pump it by us on multiple occasions but we took his fastball away from him a lot where he had to go to his off-speed pitch which he wasn’t having a ton of success with. He’s a really good pitcher, one of the better power arms in the area and hopefully we get to see him again late in the season.”
Richards tossed 5.2 innings and allowed five hits and three earned runs. He walked five and struck out nine while throwing 106 pitches. Ronny Daniels recorded a strike out in the sixth.
“I thought he got better as the game went on but early it was command issues,” Oxenreider said. “If you look back at the stat sheet when he walked back-to-back guys, two and three hole, he did it two different innings and those guys came around and scored and that’s a big difference especially when their guy does a good job and offensively we weren’t great.”
Hollister did load the bases with no outs in the seventh after Cole Jones singled, Colby Teaster doubled and Kemp walked. But Mulholland then struck out the side and ended the game with a curve ball looking.
“That was a huge district game right there,” Hoffman said. “It is probably going to come down to one of us as the top two in our district and both of us knew that going in and if either one of us had JV kids to throw on Thursday in those games because they weren’t district games we would have done it. We’d have pulled out all the stops to win this ballgame and we were fortunate enough to come away with the W.”
Friggle was 2-for-3 with two runs and an RBI. Fisher scored twice and walked twice. Mullholland was 2-for-3 with two runs driven in.
