By John Rittenhouse
Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth posted its first post-season tournament win in the history of the two schools' baseball program in Cottonwood Thursday.
Playing a Section 3A game that originally was scheduled to take place in Eden Valley Saturday, No. 12 H-BC-E was considered the underdog against No. 5 Lakeview.
In the end, some clutch hitting and pitching from senior Justin Van Maanen led the Patriots to an 8-6 win over the Lakers.
The victory snapped a seven-game H-BC-E losing streak and gave it a 4-10 record heading into the second round of the double-elimination tournament Saturday. Look for that game story elsewhere in the sports section of this edition of the Hills Crescent.
Van Maanen played a key role in putting the Patriots in the winner's bracket.
Not only did Van Maanen fan 10 batters while pitching a complete game, he also came up with what proved to be the game-winning hit.
Lakeview scored twice in the bottom half of the fifth inning to knot the score at six.
H-BC-E, however, countered with two runs in the top of the sixth to move in front to stay.
Zach Wysong singled and Lyle DeBoer walked to start the sixth for H-BC-E, and they moved to second and third when David Top laid down a sacrifice bunt. Van Maanan then delivered a two-run double that put H-BC-E in front to stay.
H-BC-E took a 1-0 lead when DeBoer doubled before scoring on a single by Top in the top of the first, but Lakeveiw moved in front 2-1 in the bottom half of the inning.
Brant Deutsch walked and tied the game at two when Kevin Van Batavia tripled in the top of the second.
Lakeview, however, scored two more runs in the bottom of the second to take a 4-2 lead that lasted until the Patriots scored four times in the top of the fourth.
Jeremy Tiesler singled home two runs, DeBoer slapped an RBI double and Top added an RBI single to the fourth-inning rally.
DeBoer and Top had two hits each at the plate.