South baseball team has first winning streak

North pitcher Ben Vorpahl threw his school’s first no-hitter since 2009 on Tuesday – submitted photo

Now that’s a way to put together the first winning streak of the baseball season.

Sheboygan North defeated rival Sheboygan South, 7-3, on Thursday, two days after pitcher Ben Vorpahl threw the school’s first no-hitter since 2009 in a victory over Bay Port.

As a result, the Golden Raiders have won back-to-back games for the first time in improving to 5-4 (4-3 in the Fox River Classic Conference).

“It was good to get back to playing decent baseball,” North coach Steve Goes said. “To be able to play decent baseball in all three facets of the game was encouraging. Our defense has been great all year, but the pitching has been spotty and the offense has been a little spotty as well.

“So two games in a row to string some hits together, get some people on base, steal some bases, that was good for us.”

North held a 4-2 lead when it scored three times in the top of the sixth to pull away thanks to run-scoring hits from Brent Widder, Jacob Neese and Brian Traas.

Widder, Neese and Ethan Scherg also drove in runs in the first to give the Golden Raiders a quick 3-0 advantage.

“Any time you do that, it shuts the other team down from stealing or bunting, things like that,” Goes said. “That was kind of the focal point before the game.”

Payton Voight was the winning pitcher for North, as he allowed six hits and two runs in five innings to go with eight strikeouts. Bennet Becker pitched in relief.

South’s Ben Souik drove in a run and also scored, and Trey Klessig tripled in a run. But the Redwings left 14 runners on base, according to coach Derek Loomans, to fall to 1-6 in the league and overall.

“We had the bases loaded or runners in scoring position with less than two outs multiple times and we just didn’t drive the runs in; they did,” Loomans said. “That was the deciding factor. They walked 10 guys, so we had the opportunities to score. We just didn’t follow through.”