JANESVILLE
For the first time this season, 糖心Vlog传媒 Parker鈥檚 baseball team feasted on a little home cooking Thursday.
Gavyn Novak pitched six solid innings and JJ Douglas doubled, tripled and drove in a run to lead the Vikings to a 5-3 win over Madison La Follette in a Big Eight Conference game at Riverside Park.
In improving to 4-16 overall and 3-13 in conference play, Parker won its first home game of the season.
鈥淲e鈥檝e talked all season long about our inability to finish games, but today we were able to do that,鈥 Parker coach Kerry Michaels said. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 a good sign, especially coming off a tough loss on Tuesday.
鈥淕avyn was very efficient for us on the mound and we did just enough offensively to get the job done.鈥
Parker got on the board in the bottom of the first. Douglas tripled to deep center and scored on Tre Miller鈥檚 RBI single.
La Follette (7-10, 5-9) took a 2-1 lead in the fourth thanks to two unearned runs, but Parker tied the game in the bottom of the inning. Trace Jacobson singled, advanced to second when Bard Warda was hit by a pitch and scored on Keegan Skrzypchak鈥檚 RBI single.
The Vikings took the lead for good in the fifth on Douglas鈥 RBI double.
Novak pitched six strong innings before tiring in the seventh. The junior right-hander allowed only one earned run and struck out four. Caleb Wilson came on in the seventh to pick up the save.
鈥淕avyn was cruising along until he had to sit for a while in the sixth when we had a long inning up to bat,鈥 Michaels said. 鈥淚 think the wait may have bothered him in the seventh, but fortunately, Caleb came on and got the job done.
鈥淎nd really, we鈥檝e had decent pitching most of the season. It鈥檚 our offense that has let us down, but in the last couple of weeks, that has started to pick up.鈥
Parker is scheduled to play at Edgerton in a nonconference game Saturday.
JANESVILLE PARKER 5, MADISON LA FOLLETTE 3
La Follette 000 2 1 鈥 3 6 3
Parker 100 112 x 鈥 5 7 2
Leading hitters鈥擬L: Mutuszak (2B); JP: Douglas 2x3 (2B), (3B), Sihabouth 2x4.
Pitchers (ip-h-r-er-so-bb)鈥擬L: Menge (L, 5-6-3-3-5-0), Mutuszak (.2-1-2-0-1-2), Doucette (.1-0-0-0-0-0); JP: Novak (W, 6-5-3-1-4-3), Wilson (1-0-0-0-0-1).