The ball came in exactly where Michelle Artzberger likes it, and he took advantage.
The junior smacked Nathan Pacquin’s pitch over the left-field wall to drive in three runs, highlighting yet another dominant performance for Mac in a 21-0 rout of Eisenhower in five innings at the Highlanders diamond on Monday night.
The win marked the second time in the past week and third time this month Mac surpassed 20 runs, defeating Altus, 26-2, on April 2 and Ardmore, 29-0, on April 12.
“He left it kind of high, and it was a little outside, so I just took it where he pitched it and the wind was blowing out,” Artzberger said. “I made solid contact on it, and it just went out. I had a feeling (it was going out) when I saw it go off the bat, but I wasn’t sure too sure, so I just kept running.”
The home run was Artzberger’s fifth of the season.
Artzberger, who went 2-for-3 with 5 RBIs, wasn’t the only Highlander to experience success at the plate, though.
Nine Mac batters recorded hits in the victory, with Racer Felter, Rylan Webb and Colby Flood leading the way alongside Artzberger with two hits apiece. Zac DeLong, though, finished with only one hit, driving in three runs, as did Felter.
Trey Longacre, Jack Smith and Aeron Woodson all tallied two RBIs, while Webb, Brad Hoskins and Flood each had one.
Hoskins’ RBI came in the third inning when he delivered a triple to center field, scoring Webb, increasing the lead to 17-0.
In all, the Highlanders recorded 13 hits and were walked 12 times, a stat Mac coach Rodney DeLong takes pride in.
“We have a lot of guys in the lineup who can swing it pretty good with good power,” DeLong said. “If you walk us, we’re going to score a bunch of runs. Unless you have very good velocity, it’s going to take a pretty special effort from the pitcher to keep us from scoring a whole lot. The boys are getting confident at the plate, and we’re just not swinging at a lot of bad pitches. They’re not selfish. If you’re not going to throw strikes, they’ll take their walks. Our biggest thing that we talk about all the time with them is just getting on base and letting the guy behind you drive you in, and that’s our motto.
“That’s the mark of a good team and a good offensive club.”
Artzberger also dominated on defense as well, throwing a nohitter with four strikeouts to earn the win on the mound. He is now 7-1 in starts with a 1.22 ERA and 55 strikeouts through 34 innings. Zac DeLong will pitch in the second game of the series tonight at 6 p.m. at Ike.
Similar to the teams’ meeting in the Bo Bowman Tournament on March 29, which Mac won 17-1, the Highlanders ended the first inning with 11 runs behind six hits to put the game out of reach early. Artzberger, Longacre and Zac DeLong each recorded a double in that opening frame, combining for six RBIs in the process.
Mac followed up the dominant inning with five runs in each of next two, tallying seven hits.
Mac has several decent opponents coming later this week in the East vs. West Shootout in McAlester, but DeLong said his team isn’t look ahead past the Eagles. After all, Ike defeated the Highlanders three times last season.
“Eisenhower will come back and have a lot of fight in them,” DeLong said. “I don’t think they’re going to go quietly in this thing at all. If we don’t come out focused, we’ll have our hands full with those guys. They’re capable of scoring some runs. Even though we play some good teams this week, we’re not overlooking those guys. We overlooked them a little bit last year, but we’ll never make that mistake again.”
Although it is hard to pinpoint a peaking moment because Mac has been so successful in accumulating a 21-2 record, DeLong’s club might be playing its best baseball yet. The Highlanders earned two close wins against respectable teams in Heritage Hall, 6-4, and Shawnee, 6-5, during the Bill Tipton Classic during the weekend.
Because of those favorable results, DeLong said he believes Mac is peaking at the right time with about two weeks remaining in the regular season.
“When we played Elgin in the Bo Bowman finals, we faced that pitcher who had some good velocity to prepare us,” DeLong said. “We went to El Reno and faced their No. 1, and that prepared us a little bit more. Last weekend we played Heritage Hall’s No. 1, and Shawnee has two or three really good pitchers. The more we see that high-level stuff, the better we’re going to become.
"Hopefully that’ll prepare for us the regional and state tournament, which is where we plan to be."