The Madison Warhawks did something they hadn’t done in many years during the high-school baseball team’s recent five-game spring break trip to Orlando – they lost three games in a row.
Madison lost its first three games of the competition by 8-2, 4-3, and 5-3 scores. Prior to that trio of losses, the last time the Warhawks dropped three straight was in the 2010 season, also on an early-season springbreak trip. That year Madison lost its first four contests on the trip.
“Justin [Counts, assistant coach] and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d lost three in a row,” Madison head coach Mark Gjormand said.
Madison has won multiple district, region and state championships since that 2010 campaign, often losing only between two and five games a season. The Warhawks are the defending district and Class 6 state champs.
The 2008 season was the last time Madison lost three straight games during the non-spring-break regular-season portion of its schedule.
After dropping its first three at this year’s spring-break tourney, the Warhawks bounced back to win its final two – 8-3 over Timothy Christian of Illinois and 15-2 against Keil High School of Wisconsin – to improve their overall record to 5-3.
Madison begins play against Concorde District opponents this week.
“We lost the first three against some good teams, but it was a good trip,” Gjormand said. “We made some changes and found out some things about our team that will make us better.”
In the win over Keil, Preston Lee had a solo homer and RBI triple for Madison, Max Julyan had a three-run double and RBI single, Max Weiler had two hits and two RBI, Drew Hall (single) and Cole DeSimone (two RBI) had sacrifice flies, Chase Adams doubled, Henry Navario had two hits including an RBI double, and Hector Orozco had a couple of hits.
On the mound, Trent Reasons started and pitched three innings and Daniel Nielsen threw the final two frames of relief.
Against Timothy Christian, Luke Ayer started and got the win.
Madison scored many runs as the result of stolen bases, errors, wild pitches, passed balls and walks. Cord Yates had a two-run single and Nathan Todreault an RBI single.
