The baseball balancing act continues, as they defeated Parkway North (3-1), who were ranked seventh in the STLhighschoolsports.com large-schools rankings by a score of 7-3 last Friday, but fell to Parkway South 6-2 the very next day. The Spartans record is now at 2-2, as they try to start a winning streak and stay above .500. Against Parkway North, senior Blake Wellinghoff made his first start of the season, and afterwards, Wellinghoff felt that overall, the team played better than they have all year.

“We performed great I thought, we advanced runners and got timely hits, and our pitchers did a good job of getting quick outs,” Wellinghoff explained.

One key for the Spartans against North was capitalizing on the Vikings’ mistakes. Parkway North committed a resounding eight errors in the game, and while Wellinghoff says he doesn’t remember each error, he knows the team took advantage of their [North’s] mistakes.

Parkway North started off with two runs in the first inning, but aside from one more run in the sixth, it was all Central the rest of the game. The Spartans were led by senior Ryan Howard, who hit his first home run of the season, along with three RBI’s and two hits.

Central also was led by senior Austin Pierce, who garnered two hits, and junior Mitch Miller, who had one RBI. As for pitching, Wellinghoff pitched solid, going almost five innings, only allowing three runs, and striking out four. Senior Tanner Emring and junior Cody Calhoun kept the four run lead for the Spartans, with Emring striking out two and Calhoun striking out one, closing the game.

In their final game against the Parkway District, the Spartans faced off against Parkway South, and unlike North, the Spartans couldn’t build momentum from their last victory, as they fell 6-2. Wellinghoff was frustrated, as the loss brought the team back down to .500.

“We just weren’t focused enough, and we made some simple mistakes,” Wellinghoff said.

The team overall has been playing well statistically, and currently are ranked third in the GAC South conference record-wise. On defense, they have allowed the fewest runs (seven) in the conference as well.

The Spartans have their eyes set on breaking .500 and staying constantly above that mark, according to Wellinghoff.

“We are working on keeping consistent hitting and pitching and not making mistakes that could cost us games,” Wellinghoff said. The Spartans were confident that they could’ve entered their next game riding a two game winning streak, but that isn’t the case.

“We could have beaten both Parkway North and South” junior Heriberto Wyatt said.

The Spartans next game is this Thursday against Vianney, in the Midwest Classic tournament.