North Kansas City notched their first victory of the year in a hard-fought nail-biter against St. Pius X to spoil the Warriors season opener 8-7. Senior Noah Devero sparkled on the hill throwing six innings with six strikeout allowing two earned runs as he picked up his first victory of the year. In their two losses this weekend, the squad struggled with runners in scoring position stranding 14 through two games. This was quickly resolved with some clutch hitting to start game three. The Hornets bats were on fire from the start with the purple and gold scoring five runs on four hits in the second inning. That set the tone until the seventh when NKC withstood a barrage by Pius as they scored four runs to pull to within one, but with the winning run at the plate, junior Layne Campbell got a huge strikeout to end the game and pick up the save.

In that second inning, the Hornets sent nine men to the plate led off by triple from Dayton Horn. That was followed by a Noah Devero double, a Nick Ward single, Eli Lewis reached on an error, and Diamonds Cooper laced a two-RBI double. Eight of the starting nine Hornets would score in the game with Cooper, Devero, and Brett Kamler all notching two hits. But the player of the game was Devero on the mound. He allowed only three hits in his six innings and didn't walk a batter until the fifth. The seventh inning proved to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride as NKC picked up a huge insurance run in the top of the frame thanks to a Layne Campbell RBI single. Then it was up to Campbell to hold the line with the Hornets starting the bottom of the seventh leading 8-3. The Warriors proceeded to load the bases thanks to their high-powered offense featuring future Missouri Tiger Jack Mosh and future Kansas Jayhawk Karter Muck. With the tying run on second and the winning run at the plate, Campbell was able to hold on for a K to close it out.

The victory ends a four game losing streak against St. Pius dating back to 2017 and was Northtown's first at Pius's new sports complex. They improve to 1-2 on the season as Devero evens his record at 1-1.

North Kansas City now heads straight into a steady diet of tough teams as they open their season at home against Winnetonka at Macken on Wednesday. This will be the Griffins first game of the season.
Full game is below.