Nick Monistere hurls a gem to push top-ranked Northwest Rankin past No. 10 Brandon
FLOWOOD — Nick Monistere was a one-man wrecking crew for top-ranked Northwest Rankin.
The Southern Miss signee had three hits at the plate and was the winning pitcher on the mound to help lead the Cougars to a 10-2 win over rival Brandon at Wesley Scarbrough Field Saturday afternoon.
“We all pretty much know what we’re going to get out of Nick when he’s on the mound. He throws strikes and he’s real tough to get hits off of,” said Northwest Rankin coach K.K. Aldridge. “We needed to come out and swing the bats better today and we did that.”
Brandon took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning one back to back throwing errors by the Cougars.
Northwest Rankin tied the game 1-1 in the bottom of the inning as Christian Cameron scored on a wild pitch.
The Cougars took a 3-1 lead in the third inning on RBI triple by Monistere and a sacrifice fly by Brady Thomas.
Thomas delivered a two-run single in the fifth to extend the Northwest Rankin lead to 5-1.
Brandon’s final run came on a sacrifice fly by K.K. Clark in the sixth to cut the Cougar lead to 5-2.
Northwest Rankin tacked on five runs in the bottom of the sixth highlighted by a two-run double by Evan Rogers and two-run home run to right by Thomas.
Monistere also had a RBI single in the sixth and finished the game 3-for-4 with two RBI’s to lead the Cougar offensively. Brice Ainsworth also had three hits, while Thomas and Rogers had two hits each for Northwest Rankin (15-2).
“We did a good job of responding every time we gave up something and were able to get big hits when we needed and extend the lead,” Aldridge said. “Frustrating part is we committed five errors and to be the team we want to be we can’t give the other team extra outs.”
Monistere (5-1) on the mound tossed five and two-thirds innings allowing just two hits, walked one and struck out nine.
“Felt good the whole game even with the few errors behind me that’s just baseball. I was seeing the ball good at the plate and the whole team was, so that helped me out on the mound,” Monistere said. “Arm felt great filling up the zone with all pitches, so I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Mason Green (3-1) took the loss on the mound for the Bulldogs (14-5).
