By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA–The Helena Huskies baseball team was seeking their 10th win of the season and ironically on Wednesday, March 15, the Huskies 10-run ruled Hoover to defeat the Bucs 11-1 in five innings.

On a day that felt more like Feb. 15, with cold temperatures and a brisk wind, it made no difference for Helena as they collectively finished with 12 hits and jumped on Hoover early to put the game away.

Helena’s Jake Busby was the first batter of the game for the Huskies in the bottom of the first and drove a double to right field that was the start of a 6-run first inning.

A Hoover error scored Busby and advanced Riley Davis to third that put Helena up 1-0.

Later in the inning, Brooks Brophy doubled to centerfield to score Davis and Lawson Peoples and a balk scored Brophy to make it 4-0.

The next two runs came on a Troy Cordrey double and an RBI infield single by B. Moss to score Cordrey.

Down 6-0, Hoover’s lone run of the game came in the top of the third inning on an RBI single to make it 6-1.

Helena once again had another big inning in the bottom of the fourth as they drove in five runs in part because of a few Hoover errors as well as timely hitting by the Huskies.

Helena scored one run on a passed ball and scored the final two runs of the game by an errant throw to first base by the Hoover third baseman that allowed Cordrey and Nick Ragsdale to score.

Cordrey had singled earlier in the inning and Ragsdale doubled to put runners in scoring position.

Hoover needed to score at least one run in the top of the fifth inning to avoid the 10-run rule but was unable to do so as Brophy sat the Bucs down in order to cap off the impressive win.

Davis got the win for Helena on the mound pitching three innings surrendering five hits and one run. Brophy pitched the final two innings allowing just two hits.

“I was just real proud of just setting the tone in the first inning,” Helena head coach PJ Guy said. “It kind of got started with Jake Busby coming up and leading the game off with a double and hitting can be very contagious. I thought him getting the day started with a double got us started on the right track. We had a lot of really good at bats and hit a lot of hard balls and we put pressure on them.”

With the win, Helena improved to 10-3 on the season.