The Forest Hills Central baseball team returned from spring break with a big week of games against Byron Center. The Rangers started off on Byron Center’s home field on Tuesday, April 11, then continued the battle at home on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Rangers started off a little rocky after coming back from spring break. Junior Trevor Williams stated, “After a long break it took a second for the team to bounce back.”  This was reflected on Tuesday when varsity Ranger baseball started off with a close loss. The teams were tied in the bottom of the eighth, which is extra innings for high school baseball, when Schichtel, a junior from Byron Center, hit a sac fly bringing the score to 9-8 on the last play of the game. Even though the Rangers lost on day one the team played exceptionally well and did not let the Bulldogs pull ahead too far. Senior Justin Osterghouse hit the Rangers’ first home run of the season to bring the game to a tie in the seventh inning before barely losing in the eighth.

The Rangers came back on Wednesday ready to play, “Losing a close first game was a tough thing, but I feel like it gave us an edge going into Wednesday and allowed us to win pretty big,” said junior Alex Brown. Wednesday’s game started off with Byron in the lead only for the Rangers to turn the game around in the bottom of the second scoring five runs. The team’s energy was back and the momentum kept going throughout the game. The Rangers scored another three runs in the fourth and two in the fifth along with the sixth. Juniors Ty Hudkins, Mathew Seurynck, JT Hartman, and sophomore Isaiah Wright each collected two hits for the Rangers. The final score for this game was 13-8.

After Wednesday’s game, both teams had collected one win, and with one game to go, the suspense grew. Sure enough, the Rangers did not disappoint and collected another win on Thursday to add to their record. Thursday’s game started off with Trevor on the mound and continued this way until JT came in as relief in the fifth inning. The game started off slow with neither team scoring through the first three innings. By the time the fourth inning came around the Rangers were eager to win scoring six runs in the bottom of the fourth. The team then gave up two runs to the Bulldogs in the fifth but came back, scoring three more runs in the sixth. The Rangers took the game with a final score of 9-4.

The FHC varsity baseball team is looking forward to a great season with a ton of energy, “To bounce back after a tough loss like that has changed the momentum of our season going into conference,” said Ty.

The team is gearing up to play against East Grand Rapids on Tuesday, April 18, at home. Along with a Hudsonville tournament this weekend on Saturday, April 15.

“Our mentality is to win. EGR was able to take the series last year but we won’t let it happen again,” said Alex.