HAMILTON — The Hamilton High School baseball team put on its rally cap early Saturday night.
Talawanda was left clawing back from it.
Noah Davidson went 2-for-2 with an RBI and a run scored, and Big Blue’s six-run second inning proved to be the difference in a 7-4 nonconference victory over the Brave at Stang Field.
Hamilton (5-6), which has won two in a row after losing five straight, snapped a Talawanda (6-7) five-game winning streak. Big Blue and the Brave have played every season since 2010 — aside from the Covid year — with HHS owning the series 10-5.
“We want to play local teams,” Hamilton second-year coach Josh Sams said. “We want to win those local games. When we set the schedule this year, we want to play those local teams — kind of get our name back up there being able to compete locally. That’s what we’re looking for.”
Hamilton’s quick offensive burst overshadowed a subpar defensive performance. Big Blue committed four errors.
“I’m kind of disappointed that it wasn’t a pretty game for us,” Sams said. “We focus a lot on defense and doing the right thing. We made some errors tonight, and that’s not going to win very many baseball games. We’ve got stuff to clean up, but it’s good to get a win.
“We’re a work in progress. We’re a lot further ahead than what we were last year,” Sams added. “Still a lot of growing pains. But I think the second year with everybody understanding the system and how we do things, we’re ahead. We played a really tough early part of our schedule. It kind of lightens up on the end. Hopefully, we can take from those mistakes in these early games, and we can push forward.
“I think we’ve got a good baseball team. We throw the ball well. We pride ourselves on defense, but you may not have known that tonight. Still learning the game of baseball. But this is a good little group.”
Talawanda plated two runs in the third, a run in the fourth and a run in the fifth to pull it to within 6-4. Then Hamilton added an insurance run in the bottom of the fifth.
Seniors Eddie Tanner and Connor Sayler each had two hits for Talawanda. Senior Nathaniel Iden had a hit, an RBI and walked twice.
“We love being out here. Hamilton does a great job for us. We love that,” said Brave coach Matt Lykins, who has been at Talawanda since 2020. “What we want to stress to our guys is, ‘Hey, I know this means a lot to you. You know a lot of those guys. They know a lot of you. You know there’s a bragging rights type of situation for it, but come to it, it’s not a conference game. We’ve got to flush this and forget it and play our game as we move forward.’”
Junior Jacob Eads got the start for Hamilton, going 3.2 innings while giving up three runs on seven hits and striking out five. Chad Taylor came in to pitch 3.1 innings of one-hit ball. Taylor give up a run and struck out two.
Big Blue scored six runs against Iden, who pitched two innings as Talawanda’s starter. Brody Morris and Micah Daniels finished it off on the mound.
“We were seeing the ball really well today,” said Davidson, a sophomore. “We were stringing some hits together when we needed to. Defense was a little rugged at the start, but towards the end of it, we got it put together and got the win.
“It was really about putting the ball into play. We had to make them have to make plays. That’s what we did, and we did a good job today.”
Both teams get back to action on Monday. Hamilton hosts Princeton, and Talawanda welcomes Mount Healthy.
“This fight on this team is something,” Lykins said. “You get into a 6-0 hole and come back. I thought we controlled the last five innings. In that regard, we didn’t panic. We started chipping, playing our game.
“We had to try and manufacture runs as we could,” Lykins added. “We had to put the ball in play and see what we could do, and we did that. So, I’m really pleased by that.
“We have a chance to make some noise. This team is the real deal. I’m really happy to get back out there after this. We’re still hot. It’s one loss. That’s why we play 27 of them.”
