Posted: June 23, 2009 |(0) Comments

Both were pre-season favorites in the North Shore Conference, but now the Germantown and Whitefish Bay baseball teams were just two squads looking for a push in the right direction Tuesday night.

And it was the injury-plagued Warhawks who found their way back to the right road with a five-run first. After the quick start, they never looked back, routing a talented, but clearly frustrated host Blue Duke team, 14-2, Tuesday night.

The Warhawks (4-6 in the North Shore and 7-9 overall) were coming off a dispiriting 11-0 loss to Slinger Monday night and needed the quick start to restore confidence, said coach Parrish Wagner.

"This proved a lot of what we we've been talking about all summer," Wagner said. "We're a team of momentum and this is a game of highs and lows. You can't let yourself get too high and you can't let the lows hold you down."

"With us, the roller-coaster continues."

Meanwhile, for the Blue Dukes, with two major league draft choices (Kevin James and Charlie Markson) among the eight returning starters in their line-up, the avenue towards prosperity remains as bumpy and torn up as the road construction that marks the immediate area around their Cahill Park diamond.

Bay was coming a 3-0 loss to West Bend West Monday night and fell to 4-6 in the North Shore and 9-7 overall with the loss to Germantown.

"We're just not doing a lot right, right now," said Blue Duke coach Jay Wojcinski. "If we don't figure things out quickly, it could be a long summer. It's just frustrating. We have way too much talent to be scuffling the way we are."

But the Blue Dukes couldn't get much done against Warhawk senior Mitch Andrus, as he scattered just four hits over five innings with six strikeouts and just one walk.

Andrus could relax early, as the Warhawks pounded Bay starter and loser Markson for five runs in the first. Tyler Wester, Ryan Seifert and Jared Fon all had RBI hits and Jordan Flasch cracked a two-run double down the third-base line for the final tallies of the frame.

Markson left at the start of the fourth and the Warhawks battered reliever Michael Burns for five runs in just a third of an inning as Blake Marks had a solo home run, Seifert a two-run single and Derek Strasser a run-scoring single.

After another change of pitchers, Flasch raised his RBI total for the night to five with a bases-loaded triple. By the end of the frame, it was 13-0.

Charlie Knipper doubled to start the Bay fourth and broke up the shutout by scoring on an error. James, who was walked twice, homered in the bottom of the fifth, but Andrus struck out the last two batters to end the game.

"I liked Mitch's (Andrus) approach to the game after we got the lead," Wagner said. "I told him I didn't want to see any walks and he just went out there and pounded the strike zone. It's what Mitch does best. He works fast and keeps people involved in the game."