Northeast Nodaway’s season abruptly ended Monday at the hands of St. Joseph Christian 14-3 as the Lions teed off on Bluejay pitching. The game featured a rivalry between coaching brothers Micah and Cody Green, who are assistants at Christian and NEN respectively. Micah, who was on the field for Northeast’s 10-9 sectional win over Christian in 2017 at Northwest Missouri State’s field, said that he had remembered that game. “I’ve been waiting for this game ever since 2017. We had them down 8-0, and we choked it away,” said Micah Green. Now, it is Cody’s turn to file Monday’s game away for the next time the two teams play.
Christian threw Camden Lutz, who has signed to play for Missouri Western, at the Bluejays for the first three innings. Sure enough, he shut down Northeast and they pulled him so he would be available for Wednesday’s game with Platte Valley. Meanwhile, Northeast sent Auston Pride for the first two innings and then switched to Dylan McIntyre for the third. But the Lions found his pitches to their liking and all hell broke loose in the third as Caleb Carlson’s screamer to the wall in left scored two runs in the third. Blake Ray beat out an infield hit as Carlson scored for the third run. Two run doubles by Camden Lutz and Nick Orscheln in the fourth gave the Lions a 7-0 lead.
Micah Green, at that point, reminded his players not to let up, since Northeast had wiped out an 8-0 deficit the last time the two teams played. But with Lutz at 39 pitches and needing to come out if the Lions wanted to use him against Platte Valley, Northeast had an opening and used a two out rally in the fourth as Colton Swalley sat on a breaking ball and singled to keep the fourth inning going. Lane Dack reached on an error and singled from Auston Pride and Grant McIntyre cut the Bluejay deficit to 7-2.
After Colton Swalley cut down Hayden Riley stealing and Ben Boswell turned down a perfect 6-3 double play in the Lion fifth, Zach Pride worked a walk on a 3-2 pitch and Dylan McIntyre doubled to put runners on second and third with one out. Ben Boswell grounded out to score Pride to cut it to 7-3. Colton Swalley walked after fighting back from 0-2, and Lane Dack hit a screamer to the warning track that would have cleared the bases and forced Lutz to come back to quash the rally. But Caleb Carlson ran it down for the third out, which broke the backs of the Bluejays. All hell broke loose again in the seventh, and four hits, three walks, and an error later, the Bluejay season was over.
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