Kewanee baseball Coach John Moraski has eight returning varsity members and two senior newcomers to build around for the 2024 season. The Boilers will try to improve on last season’s record of 6-21, overall, and 2-11 in TRAC-East play.
The returning senior letter winners are Jackson Hawkins and Cruz Paredes. Returning junior letter winners are Colson Welgat, Ben Taylor, Brady Schiltz, Brayden Conley, Lincoln Mason and Landon Sheets.
The senior newcomers to the program are Blake Johnston and Braden Clark. Making the move up from last year’s frosh-soph team are juniors, Mitchal Thorp and Dillon Price, and sophomores Griffin and Abe Hicks.
Serving as assistant varsity coach is Dayton Ince. The frosh-soph head coach is Jon Henegar and Willie Terry lll is the assistant coach.
So far this season the Boilermakers have a record of 1-5. The lone win was on March 16 against Galva, with Kewanee producing an 18-6 victory over the Wildcats. In their most recent game, the Boilers took a tough 6-4 loss on Thursday at the hands of the Ridgewood Spartans.
Ridgewood 6, Kewanee 4
The Boilers held a 4-3 lead after six innings of play Thursday night at Northeast Park, but the Spartans scored three runs at the top of the seventh inning to secure the 6-4 non-conference win. Ridgewood is now 5-0 on the season.
Ridgewoods’ Sean Watt scored the first run of the game, giving the Spartans a 1-0 lead heading into the second inning. Cruz Paredes got Kewanee on the board after stealing home in the bottom of the second frame.
Draven Smith then singled at the top of the third, sending home Owen Anderson to give the Spartans a 2-1 lead. Ridgewood added another run in the fifth inning after Alex White scored off of a Kewanee error to expand the lead to 3-1.
Kewanee’s bats came to life in the sixth inning as the Boilers put three runs on the board to take a 4-3 lead. First, Lincoln Mason singled to right field and Brady Schiltz scored. The second run of the inning came compliments of Colson Welgat. The junior batter ground into a fielder’s choice and Brayden Conley scored on an error by the Ridgewood shortstop.
On the same series, Ben Taylor advanced to third base and Dillon Price scored as the Boilers took the lead at 4-3 heading into the seventh and final inning. Kewanee’s lead, however, was short-lived as the Spartans put up three more runs in the top of the seventh inning for the 6-4 win.
Landon Sheets pitched the first five innings for the Boilers. The junior hurler struck out eight batters and gave up one walk. He surrendered five hits and three runs (one earned) over five innings of play. Cruz Paredes pitched the final two innings. He struck out one batter and walked one, while surrendering four hits and three runs (three earned).
Alex White was the winning pitcher for Ridgewood. He fanned six and had one walk in four innings in the circle. He gave up two hits and two runs (one earned).
Kewanee had four hits, four runs and five errors on the night, while Ridgewood had nine hits, six runs and four errors in the win.
Lincoln Mason went 2-3 at the plate (1 RBI and 1 BB), Ben Taylor was 1-2 (1 BB) and Colson Welgat was 1-4 (1 RBI). Scoring one run each for the Boilers were Brady Schiltz, Cruz Paredes, Dillon Price and Brayden Conley.
