It took some time for the season to catch a spark, but the Panthers have caught on fire as the North Platte baseball team (6-6) has won six of its last seven games after an 0-5 start to the season.
After its season opener, North Platte had a brief scoring drought on offense – tallying a mere total of four runs in the next four games – but it has now been adding runs to the scoreboard with ease. The Panthers have scored in double-digits in three of their last four contests, including three 16-run outings against North Andrew (0-8) on April 8, Osborn with Stewartsville (1-5) on April 13 and Kansas City Lutheran (3-4) on April 18.
For the past 15 seasons, the Panthers have been unable to win more than three consecutive games at any time, but that changed on April 14. North Platte took down Penney (0-7) in the first conference matchup between the teams – with this being the Hornets’ first season as a program – when the Panthers won 14-12 in eight innings.
The victory gave North Platte its fourth consecutive win, which hasn’t been done in the program in ages. The Panthers led the Hornets 10-6 when stepping on the field on defense in the bottom of the sixth inning, but Penney poured out four runs to tie the contest.
In the ensuing inning, a Ryan York double sent two Panthers – Colton Kirkham and Chance Garber – across home plate to give North Platte a 12-10 margin. After the Hornets’ first three batters were walked in the bottom of the seventh inning, Penney added a pair of runs to knot the game at 12 with no outs.
York subbed in for Kaden Mullendore on the mound and North Platte survived the inning with three consecutive outs and no more runs allowed. In the top of the eighth inning, Kirkham singled on a ground ball but reached second base on a Hornet error.
On the same play, Creek Johnson and Landon Bartlett crossed home plate to give North Platte a 14-12 advantage. Penney singled on the first at-bat in the bottom of the inning, but the North Platte defense stepped up and forced three straight outs to end the game.
The Panthers had 16 hits on the night, led by Johnson and Kirkham with three apiece, while the Hornets had 10 hits and eight errors. Johnson spent five innings on the mound where he struck out nine Penney batters.
The victory for North Platte was its first beating a KCI Conference opponent since April 29, 2018, when the Panthers took down Plattsburg on the day, by a score of 8-5. That was the same year of North Platte’s most recent .500 record – which was on April 6, 2018 – when the Panthers sat at a 3-3 record at the time.
North Platte reached .500 on the season when it took down Kansas City Lutheran by a score of 16-4. The Panthers have now rattled off five straight victories and haven’t lost to the Knights since 2015.
The Panthers are in position to earn seven plus victories for the first time since 2018 as they ended with exactly six wins in each of the last two years. It’s been more than a decade since North Platte has surpassed the double-digit mark in the victory column, so the Panthers will hope to make this recent surge into a step in the right direction for the program.