HS Baseball: Week 4 Provides Measuring Stick for Pirates

By Chris Rueber After a winless season in 2025, the Hudson Pirate baseball team scratched out four wins over the first three weeks of this season, setting the stage for a pivotal Week 4. With five games on the schedule, four of them against conference opponents, it was the most important week of the season and would serve as a measuring stick to see how this team stacks up against the rest of the North Iowa Cedar League.

Vs. Aplington-Parkersburg
Monday meant a trip over to Parkersburg to take on A-P. The Falcons jumped on Hudson early, scoring two runs in the first inning, four more in the second and four in the third to take a 10-0 lead into the top of the fourth.
Sully Janssen’s three-run homer was the big blow for the Falcons, and the Pirates could get virtually nothing going at the plate. Eighth-grader Caden Dlouhy led the Hudson offense, going 2-for-3 with two singles. Blake Delagardelle and Brady Berg also added singles, but the Pirates never mounted a serious scoring threat.
The game ended up 10-0. The Falcons won it in five innings.

Vs. Columbus Catholic
Hudson was back at home on Tuesday for a matchup with Columbus Catholic.
The game got off to a rough start as the Sailors scored two in the top of the first. But the Pirates answered right back in the home half of the inning. Dlouhy singled to lead off the game, stole second base and was driven in by an RBI single off the bat of Austin Schroeder. Delagardelle kept the party going with an RBI double, and the game was tied at 2-2 after one inning of play.
This game could not have been more evenly played from that point on, and the two teams carried that 2-2 score all the way to the sixth inning.
Pirate starter Jackson Nesteby settled in nicely. He went six innings, gave up five hits, struck out five and allowed just one earned run. The big defensive play of the game came in the third inning when Delagardelle snagged a hard liner at third base and doubled up the Columbus runner, who got caught napping off the bag. That ended the only real Sailor threat for the rest of the game.
Hudson got one more run in the sixth when Delagardelle walked, was sacrificed to second by designated hitter Hunter Coulson and scored on a fielding error by the Sailor shortstop.
Vincent Bergmeier came on in relief of Nesteby and was magnificent in his one inning on the hill. Two pop-ups and a groundout to second, and that was all she wrote.
The Pirates won it 3-2.

Vs. Charles City
There was almost no time to savor the victory over Columbus because the very next night the Pirates were right back at it, battling nonconference opponent Charles City.
The Comets had traffic all over the basepaths in almost every inning. Charles City scored two in the first, two in the second, six in the third and four more in the fourth. Hudson struggled in the field, committing seven errors, which played a major role in helping the Comets pile up runs.
The Pirates had no answer for Charles City starting pitcher Miles Vais. Nesteby’s single in the first was Hudson’s only hit of the game until a very eventful fifth inning.
Hudson went into the home half of the fifth trailing 14-0 but came very close to extending the game. Gavin Gunnarson and Jackson Steele worked back-to-back walks to start things off. Dlouhy reached on an error, scoring Gunnarson and pushing Steele over to third. Schroeder slammed a double into the gap, scoring Steele, and Delagardelle hit a sacrifice fly, cutting the lead to 14-3. Hunter Coulson followed with another single, making it 14-4, but that’s as close as the Pirates could get.
The game ended after five innings, with Charles City defeating Hudson 14-4.

Vs. Denver
Thursday night meant a trip north to Denver to take on the Cyclones, another NICL foe.
This game followed a similar pattern to Hudson’s other losses of the week. Denver got on top early. The Cyclones scored two in the first, one more in the second, six in the fourth, one in the fifth and a final run in the sixth. They beat the Pirates 11-1, with Hudson scoring its only run in the third inning.
Hudson ended the game with six hits. Dlouhy, Steele, Delagardelle, Berg and Emmet Eige each had a single. Schroeder came through with a single and a double.
Vincent Bergmeier pitched four innings on the mound, and Jackson Steele finished things up for the Pirates.

Vs. AGWSR
Hudson finished Week 4 with a makeup game against AGWSR.
The Cougars scored two runs in the top of the first, and that turned out to be more than enough offense to carry the day. The story of the game was the performance of AGWSR pitcher Clay Buseman.
Buseman mystified Pirate hitters all night, and Hudson went into the home half of the seventh trailing 5-0 without a single hit on the board. Nesteby led off the inning and hit a grounder between first and second. The Cougar first baseman left the bag to try for the ball. It got by him, but the second baseman picked it up and threw to Buseman, who was sprinting over from the mound to cover first. Nesteby won the race to the bag and gave the Pirates their one and only hit of the evening.
Hudson never threatened, and AGWSR took the game 5-0. Buseman went the distance for the Cougars, striking out eight batters and surrendering just one hit.
If Week 4 of this season was indeed a measuring stick of some sort, Hudson definitely came up short. Struggles at the plate and in the field were evident all week long, and it appears the Pirates still have some work to do to become a competitive team in the NICL.
The good news is they get another crack at it in Week 5 as they work to build some momentum that might carry them into the rapidly approaching postseason.