Wednesday night saw the Highlanders baseball team reign supreme against a tough Port Washington team, winning their season-opener game with a final score of 5-3.

The Highlanders scored the first points of the game in the bottom of the first inning, and Sam Brink, junior, kept the momentum going through the second by hitting a double. The third inning saw the Highlanders score again as Luke Neusen, senior, hit a double and was brought back to home off a hit by Mitch Sutton, senior. Port scored their first run in the top of the fifth, but the Highlanders answered back with a run of their own.

The atmosphere was tense at the bottom of the sixth inning, when Port brought home two runs to tie up the game. Fortunately, the Highlanders didn’t have to be tense for long: Adam Kelly, senior, hit a two-run home run and brought the score to its eventual final, 5-3.

“I was really excited after the hit, and I was really pleased that I was able to contribute to win and the team,” Kelly said of his winning hit.

While the team had not anticipated the Pirates’ sixth-inning rally, they were thrilled with the victory nonetheless.”We would have hoped to close it out sooner, but it was good to see us win a close game against a solid port team,” Neusen said.

Ryan Cho, junior, agreed. “The game was tougher than we expected because Port Washington was tough and they wanted to win,” he said.  When asked about high points of the game, Cho stated that Kelly’s home run in got the entire team “pumped up.”

“I am really excited about the victory.  We played solid defense and only walked one runner in the game.  I am so happy for Adam Kelly, who had a pinch hit home run for us, which provided the winning runs in the game…he is young man with incredible character and integrity,” Coach Millard said.

According to Millard, the team is adjusting to the loss of multiple seniors from last hear as well as finding their rhythm for the 2015 season.”We lost a tremendous amount of talent from last year,” he said, “but our kids from the lower levels have shown some flashes of brilliance early. Our biggest question mark, coming in, was how effective we would be on the mound.”

Millard proceeded to say he’s very happy with his pitching staff of Jared Stieve, Mitchell Sutton and Trevor Cho, seniors, Joe Panella, sophomore, Eric Skaar, junior, Alec Tomkiewicz, junior, and Zach Binversie, junior, as well as his catcher,Brooks Ralph, junior.

“He is performing at an incredibly high level and has thrown out three runners already,” Millard said of Ralph. Trevor Cho also mentioned Ralph as a standout of the game. “We did a nice job or pitching and Brooks did an amazing job behind be plate for us,” he said.

Looking forward, Millard said his team will continue to focus on batting. “We have to do a better job of getting quality at bats with runners in scoring position,” he said. “We stranded too many kids at third base with less than two outs.”