“I haven’t played since last summer

[mouakter13]

Kasen Ludeman, a 2024 Thunder Mountain graduate, and Hunter Carte earned one-out walks and 2025 JDHS graduate JJ McCormick doubled to score Ludeman and send Carte to third base. Micaw Nelson earned a walk to load the bases and Noah Lewis laid down a sacrifice bunt that scored Carte to trail 3-2. South ended the game with a strikeout.

,” Ludeman said. He took a gap year before thinking of a college, but showed no signs of rust on the field at shortstop. “So it has been a while since I fielded a ground ball. Obviously it wasn’t the route I was going to go. Everything happened so quickly that I decided to take a gap year. I am glad to be back, especially on this turf field, playing on it for the c level contact list first time. No dirt, I miss that. It makes you a better fielder but turf is always nice to play on.”

Ludeman pulled down three line drives in the game and handled three, hard-hit ground balls.

“There were definitely a few plays I think I could have had, but obviously it is the first series,” Ludeman said. “So we are going to make mistakes and we are going to learn from them. There are a lot of things I like about this team but first is the energy. On my high school team we had some ups and downs, but this team, a lot of us haven’t played together, we have come pretty far in the first few games and I think throughout the rest of the games this season I think we will be a pretty good team.”

Lamar Blatnick, a 2024 graduate, handled third base easily and Carte did the same at second base. Keaton Belcourt rounded out the infield at first base with McCormick catching pitcher Cayman Huff. The outfield featured 2025 graduate Jacob Katasse in left, Lewis in center, and Brenner Harralston and Christian Brown in right.