The Crestwood Panthers moved back above the .500 mark on Thursday with a win over the Southland Vikings at Dowling Park.  

The Panthers got on the board in the first inning after Nico Pena walked in a run for an early 1-0 lead. After the Vikings tied it in the third, the Panthers scored seven unanswered to expand the lead to 8-1.  

Four Panthers came across in the fourth inning after RBI hits by Charlie Schau and Peter Fusek, a wild pitch, and a fielders choice. In the fifth, another wild pitch with Schau up plated another run and Aydin Wright slapped an RBI single to right for his third RBI of the day.  

The Panthers tacked on two more in the seventh after Wright reached on an error scoring Schau, and another Fusek RBI single. Fusek added another sacrifice fly in a three run eighth inning to bring his RBI total on the night to three. Another Wild pitch and a Hobbs Dunne hit by pitch with the bases loaded was the offense for Crestwood on the evening.  

Aside from getting eleven hits on the night, the Panthers still managed to draw 10 walks giving them the league lead with 58 walks on the season. Head coach D’Vante Glenn loved seeing the balance of his offense on the evening.  

“This is what I want the team to look like.” Glenn said, “I want them to be aggressive. I want them having fun.”  

On the mound, Cole Hermanson earned the win pitching 5.2 solid innings giving up only one earned run on three hits. It was his first start of the season following two three inning relief outings.  

“He was amazing.” Glenn said, “He was filling up the strike zone, and he was very efficient from the start.”   T

he Panthers have an off day on Friday before traveling to Illinois Tech to face off against the Chicago American Giants. The Panthers defeated the Giants 12-5 on Opening Day in their last matchup.   This will begin a stretch of eight days in a row where the Panthers will play, and a stretch of 25 games in 27 days until the end of June. Glenn looks to keep his team ready for this grueling stretch.  

“I wanna focus on getting them to lock in and keep have fun playing the game.” Glenn said.  

For the full box score, visit the Northern League Pointstreak page: http://baseball.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=577352