By Jennifer Eisenbart
Sports editor
Four games in six days brings the Burlington High School baseball team to the heart of its conference schedule.
As far as coach Scott Staude can tell, his team is ready, winning three of the four games to get some crucial experience for a young squad.
“We just knew going into this year we were pretty inexperienced and pretty young,” said Staude after his team beat Delavan-Darien 6-3 Tuesday night to go 3-1 over its four-game stretch. “The middle part of April is going to get us ready for the most difficult challenges of the year.
“I feel OK,” he added. “I think we’re getting better as the season goes on, but anytime you’re dealing with a young team, there’s going to be growing pains.”
The Demons beat Racine Horlick April 12, then lost to Racine Park the next day, 12-7.
Before beating the Comets Tuesday, BHS downed Elkhorn Monday 19-0. The Elkhorn and Delavan-Darien were the Southern Lakes Conference opening games for the Demons, and provided two fairly routine wins.
BHS scored 10 runs in the bottom of the first and nine in the bottom of the fourth Monday to 10-run-rule Elkhorn, and pitchers Nolan Friend, Nick Bartlett and Jack Simenson combined for a perfect game.
The Horlick game saw Friend, Trent Taylor and Mark Wallace all pick up two hits and Austin Smith – the winner in the Delavan-Darien game Tuesday – pick up the win on the mound.
As for the Park loss – the Demons also opened the season with a loss to the Panthers – Staude said his squad picked those two games to play poorly.
“The thing about those two games, we played our worst two games of the year,” Staude said. “It just happened to be against Racine Park both times.”
The Demons are at Delavan-Darien today at 4:30 p.m., then have the rest of the weekend off.
That brings BHS to Wilmot at home Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. – for what Staude thinks will be a big test.
“It’s always kind of a heated rival,” Staude said. “I definitely the most difficult part of our schedule coming up.”
Burlington will then travel to Wilmot two days later, and then face Waterford twice in two days – May 1 and 3 – to face off against two of the toughest opponents in the SLC.
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