Hawks Defeat New Berlin West for First Time in Seven Years

A five-run fourth inning helped the Greenfield Hustlin' Hawks baseball team accomplish something it hadn't done since 2004: beat New Berlin West.

Tyler Braden pitched 3 2/3 innings of solid relief as Greenfield posted a 12-6 win over the 2010 WIAA State Tournament qualifying-Vikings in New Berlin on Thursday.

"We haven't had much success against New Berlin West," Greenfield coach Lee Kleszczynski said. "There have been many close, heartbreaking games against them.

"Our bats really came out (Thursday). We were comfortable at the plate. All our players took a great approach at the plate. We swung at pitches we could hit hard and were patient when we needed to be."

In the fourth, Evan Greco led off with a single, stole second and scored on Nate Rios's single. After Korben Biersack singled, Nick Jablonski drove in a run with another single. Tyler Haim later added a sacrifice fly and Braden helped himself out with a run-scoring double that gave Greenfield a 10-4 lead.

With the six-run cushion, Braden threw strikes and let Greenfield's defense take care of the plays behind him.

The Hawks improved to 8-4 overall and 4-1 in the Woodland Conference. They are off Friday and play in the South Milwaukee Tournament on Saturday before resuming conference play with a road game at Greendale on Monday.