King’s Fork High School’s baseball team defeated Lakeland High School on the first day of the King’s Fork spring break tournament.

The Bulldogs picked up their second win of the season against the Cavs last Saturday. King’s Fork won the game 7-1, with Lakeland’s lone run coming in the seventh inning.

After one inning of play, the Bulldogs were up 2-0. They scored off of a triple by Tristen DeGuzman. The Bulldogs ran off with four runs in the fifth inning thanks to a double by Mason Brown. He also stole a base that inning, as well.

“We played good. We really did well,” Bulldogs coach Robert Hedrick said. “We gave up a run late in the game, but overall it was a good effort by the guys.”

King’s Fork struck out 15 batters. Blake Sargent and Andrew Riddick had five strikeouts apiece.

“We played fundamental baseball,” Sargent said. “We made plays and cut down on errors like we’ve been working on in practice. This win definitely helped the team’s morale, which I think will lead to more success.”

The tournament has given the Bulldogs an opportunity to work on things in game situations, rather than practicing. Hedrick wants his team to take this opportunity to get comfortable with everything that they do.

“We want to focus in on making routine plays,” he said. “So that way when we get into conference play, we feel real well about what we are doing.”

Hedrick believes that if his team plays as well as it should, it could do something special like win the conference. It is possible that King’s Fork could be in the championship game and face Oscar Smith High School, to whom the Bulldogs lost 3-2 in their last game before spring break.

During the tournament, they also get a chance to see Conference 17 opponent Deep Creek.

The Bulldogs like viewing spring break tournaments as the halfway mark.

“I’ve always been a big advocate of doing something over spring break,” he said. “We always want to have a chance to get better. It gives us more time as a coaching staff to look at our guys and see what different lineups to use. It’s just good to always get game experience.”

When the second half of the season starts, Hedrick wants to see his team start working more closely together. They play hard, but the Bulldogs want to start treating games as if they are underdogs.

With that philosophy, Hedrick hopes his team will have a greater edge.