In baseball, confidence is a fickle thing to have. Of late the North High Stars have had plenty of it. "Hitting is starting to come around, we're starting to put some runs on the board," said first year coach Ryan Branson. "Momentum is great. When you're winning everything it kind of makes those little problems go away."
With the hitters rolling all that's left is a good arm. Which North has in senior Ethan Roberts. He's been on the mound for four of North's ten wins this year but none were bigger than Friday against South. "It didn't really hit me until the seventh inning where all that was on my mind was the no hitter," said Roberts.
Roberts got through the seventh by striking out the final Rebel looking to complete his first no hitter. He also didn't surrender a walk and were it not for two errors in the field it would have been a perfect game.
It was also a first for his catcher, Nathaniel Dyer, a transfer from Centennial who caught for current CSUB pitcher Andrew Hansen. "That was the first no hitter I ever caught," Dyer said. "Didn't even know until the game was over. I just knew he was throwing good."
For Roberts, throwing well comes down to one pitch. "Never had problems with him with his fastball," said Branson. "Early on he struggled getting a second pitch over."
He finally got control of that secondary pitch and has enough trust in Dyer to block it. His strikeout pitch has become his slider. A pitch Dyer has heard batters chirp about. "I've heard a couple guys say that was the nastiest slider I've ever seen."
It's behind that pitch and North's hitting that the Stars hope to complete a perfect "second" season in league play and take home another title.
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