JEROMESVILLE — He may not have had his best stuff, but Caden Fickes was dealing Thursday afternoon.
Hillsdale senior right-hander struck out a career-high 12 batters as the Falcons kept pace in a tightening Wayne County Athletic League title chase with a 9-1 win over Chippewa.
Hillsdale (9-3, 5-3) has won five straight and trails WCAL co-leaders Norwayne and Waynedale by a game in the loss column. The Falcons split with the Bobcats in late-March and were swept by the Golden Bears earlier this month, but haven’t lost since.
“We knew we were going to need a lot of help, but it wasn’t going to matter if we kept losing games,” Hillsdale coach Jason Snow said of his team’s 1-3 start in league play. “We’re just a game back now. We’ve got to keep winning games.
“We can’t do anything about those early losses now. We’ve just got to take care of our business.”
Fickes took care of business after surrendering a run in the first. He survived a shaky second before settling down and retiring 15 of the final 17 batters he faced.
“I didn’t have my best, but I have a good defense behind me,” Fickes said. “If I put it in the strike zone and let them hit it, I know we’re going to make plays.”
The Falcons gave Fickes all the run support he would need in the top of the first — Hillsdale was the visiting team on the scoreboard because the game was supposed to be played in Doylestown. Mark Abel knocked in two runs with a single before Jax Rogers doubled in a pair to make it 4-0. Hillsdale added another run in the second on Nick Kandel’s ringing double to right-center and put it away when Kandel got the green light on a 3-0 count and belted a three-run home run to right in the third for a 8-1 lead.
Fickes took care of the rest. He struck out two batters in the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings and, fittingly, finished the game with his 12th and final whiff of the day.
“Caden found a way to grind it out,” Snow said. “There were several times where he fell behind, but he would work himself back into the count.
“They hit a couple of balls hard early, but he got back into the groove and kept them off-balance with his curveball.”
The Falcons will host Lucas on Friday and head to Millersburg on Saturday to take on West Holmes before returning to WCAL play next week against Smithville.
“One of our biggest goals was to win the league, but we backed ourselves into a corner against Norwayne and Waynedale,” Fickes said. “We’ve tried to forget about that and just go back to doing what we do and winning games.”
