Parkway North Explodes For 6 Runs & A Convincing Win Over Ladue

The Parkway North-Ladue baseball game was kind of like a 4th of July performance. While the North Vikings exploded like a bottle rocket, Ladue mostly fizzled like a cherry bomb with a bad fuse.

“We really didn’t get anything going, this just wasn’t our day,” said Ladue’s coach Rob Garrett, trudging off the field after a 6-0 whitewash at the hands of the 16-3 Vikings. Ladue fell to 15-3.

Sophomore lefty Joey Reeves went six innings and limited Ladue to just 4 scattered hits.

The Vikings have been battled tested this year with two wins over Summit (last year’s state champs, winners over North in the title game); Parkway South, Parkway Central Troy (2 wins), Kirkwood, Hazelwood Central and Burroughs.

The Vikings are really busy

Coach Fred Friedman is head of the IT program at North. He was busy pulling together a 7 p.m. parent conference, and was late getting out to warm up his team.

That doesn’t matter because the Vikes are in good hands with assistants Brett Katz, Mark Reeder and Mark Linn. Everyone on staff is a Parkway North grad.

Monday was fun for the Vikings

Ben Campbell went 3 for 4 at the plate. Andrew Huss had just one hit, but it was good for an RBI. Noah Rosen rose from the bottom of the lineup as the designated hitter and delivered, going 2 for 3 at the plate with a pair of RBIs.

North scored 2 in the second, 1 in the fourth and 3 in the fifth.

They out hit Ladue 8-4 and committed one error while the visiting Rams had 2 costly miscues.

In the second, the Vikes got a pair on base with walks, then Huss scored on a sacrifice out and Rosen drove in Matt Rizzo with an RBI single.

Levi Greenberg came in to relieve starter Gabe Grand in the 4th and Rosen delivered another key hit, an RBI double to right, scoring a courtesy runner for a 3-0 lead.

The roof caved in for Ladue in the fifth, Campbell got on gathering his third hit of the game, and catcher Garrett Taylor delivered the key blow, an RBI single for a 4-0 lead. Shanker and Adam Faires scored the final 2 runs of the game.

View from the mound

“My fast ball was working and the curve was too,” said Reeves who picked up the win, going six innings.

“I sort of just kept ‘em (Ladue) off balance all day,” he said.

Friedman was happy to have the win. “We’ve got  a surplus of depth and some really good players. Our players give a good effort each game and they are very selfless. Ladue’s a good team and we were happy to beat them,” said the coach.

Remaining games

Parkway North has home games Thursday with Seckman and Westminster Friday. Ladue hosts Burroughs Wednesday and goes to Affton Thursday.