Bourbon High School’s baseball team continued its strong play to open the fall season with wins Sept. 23 over Stoutland and Sept. 24 at Kingston. The Warhawks, led by coaches Danny Payne and Doug King, have a 3-0 record heading into its Sept. 28 home game versus Kingston, which will be detailed in next week’s edition.

Bourbon will play in Richland Oct. 1 and is scheduled to host Bismarck Oct. 5 in its last home game of the fall season. The Warhawks will then play road games in Viburnum and in Steelville Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, respectively for its final match ups of the fall season.

Sept. 23 vs. Stoutland

The Warhawks welcomed the Stoutland Tigers into town two days after their original scheduled game, due to heavy rain in the area. The delay was worth the wait for Bourbon fans, who saw a fast paced well played game and a dramatic home run blast.

The first three innings of the contest were controlled by the pitchers from both teams, who kept the game scoreless heading into the fourth frame. After Warhawk starting pitcher Emmett Jones got out of the top of the inning with traffic on the bases, Bourbon rallied in the bottom half of the inning.

The Warhawks hadn’t reached base until then, but leadoff hitter Anson Hormann immediately changed that. Hormann laced a double down the left field line to end Stoutland senior Riley Bench’s bid for a perfect game or a no-hitter. Garrett Wallis was then hit by a pitch and Jones followed by working a walk to load the bases with no outs.

Junior second baseman Dawson King then came to the plate and crushed a pitch over the left field fence for a grand slam and his first career high school home run, to give Bourbon a 4-0 lead.

Stoutland fought back to score three runs in the top of the sixth inning to make it a 4-3 nailbiter heading into the seventh and final inning.

Hormann, who came on in relief of Jones in the sixth inning, nailed down the final three outs to earn the save and move Bourbon to 2-0 on the fall season. Stoutland dropped its third straight game and fell to 3-6 with the loss.

Jones stuck out four Tigers in 5 1/3 innings on 76 pitches and earned the win. Stoutland out-hit the Warhawks five to three, but King’s blast was the difference in the final score. Chase Bouse singled for Bourbon’s only other base hit and stole a base in the winning effort. 

Bench was dominant for Stoutland besides the fourth inning, striking out 12 hitters in the loss.   

Sept. 24 vs. Kingston

Bourbon took the long winding bus ride to Cadet the following afternoon to take on the Kingston Cougars. The Warhawks used timely hitting and a 90 pitch complete game effort on the mound from King to earn a convincing 11-1 victory. King finished with a career-high 13 strikeouts as Kingston’s hitters were repeatedly baffled by his repertoire.

Hormann had three hits and scored twice out of the lead off spot for the Warhawks. Garret Wallis walked, singled and scored, Jones had two hits, two walks and scored twice. King also reached base four times and scored twice. Allan Studeny had two hits, a walk and scored once, Bouse singled, walked twice and scored and Jaden Booker singled and scored.