By: Matt Scher, matts@977thebolt.com
Humboldt, IA – The Humboldt baseball team dropped a 12-3 non-conference contest to No. 9 (4A) Fort Dodge on Tuesday night.
The Dodgers struck quickly, scoring five runs in the opening inning, highlighted by a three-run home run from True McBride.
Humboldt answered with two runs in the second inning on an RBI single by Brady Roth and a sacrifice fly by Caden Fredin, cutting the deficit to 5-2. However, Fort Dodge pulled away with three runs in the sixth inning and four more in the seventh before the Wildcats scored once in the bottom of the seventh.
Humboldt head coach Jason Thurm said his team responded well after the difficult first inning but gave Fort Dodge too many extra opportunities.
“We knew it’d be pretty tough. Fort Dodge is having a great season and has a great baseball team. We saw that in the first inning. We didn’t get off to the best start, but I was happy with the way we responded. Jay settled down after that, and we got four innings of shutout baseball. It was great to see him regroup, maintain his composure and give us a chance. Offensively it was a little bit of a struggle tonight, and defensively we gave away way too many freebies. More times than not, one team beats themselves, and the last couple nights we’ve been doing too much of that.”
The loss dropped Humboldt to 12-6 on the season, while Fort Dodge improved to 22-4.
The Wildcats return to action Thursday night with a non-conference road game at Mason City. First pitch is at 7 p.m.