Aggressive play helps Spartans reach 13-0 mark

 ELK HORN -- Always be aggressive and make the other team make plays.
 That’s been the mantra for Exira-Elk Horn-Kimballton baseball so far this season and it paid dividends once again Friday night (June 16) as the 10th-ranked (1-A) Spartans topped Ar-We-Va, 2-1, in a mid-season battle of unbeaten teams.
 With the game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the sixth, Spartan senior Tyson Partridge led off second base with nobody out and Drew Buckholdt standing in the batter’s box. The ensuing pitch from Rocket reliever Jake Danner bounced in the dirt and rolled a few feet away from catcher Drew Schurke.
 Without hesitation, Partridge bolted for third base. Schurke recovered the ball quickly but fired a high throw that sailed down the left field line, allowing Partridge to sprint home with the go-ahead run.
 Buckholdt followed with a single anyway, but the damage was already done.
 Partridge returned to the mound in the seventh, worked around a one-out infield single and finished off his fifth pitching win of the year with a strikeout.
 Two nights after outlasting Coon Rapids-Bayard in nine innings, 3-2, Exira-EHK survived again as one of just three undefeated teams left in the state - along with Harlan Community and Woodward-Granger - improving to 13-0 overall and 9-0 in the Rolling Valley Conference. Ar-We-Va dropped to 8-1 overall and 7-1 in the RVC.
 “It was a good win,” said first-year Spartan head coach Trevor Miller. “We knew Ar-We-Va was going to be a good game. If you look at our stats, basically we mirror each other.”
 The manner in which E-EHK scored Friday’s winning run, meanwhile, is a mirror image of how Miller wants his team to play ball.
 “We’ve been teaching as soon as they see the ball in the dirt, we go,” Miller said. “We’re going to make them pick the ball up clean, throw the ball, tag us and all that."