RAVENWOOD, Mo. – The Northeast Nodaway Bluejays are just three games into conference play and one win away from matching last year’s win total. Junior Lance Runde led the Bluejays to their third win of the season Thursday night, pitching all seven innings of the team’s 3-1 win over Stewartsville-Osborn.

“It feels good because I love pitching and I trust every guy out there to get to the ball when I just throw strikes,” Runde said.

The strikeouts began to pile up early for the junior, breezing through the first inning with a ground out and back-to-back strikeouts to end the frame. Coming into the game, Runde had pitched just a little over four innings total.

“We’ve just had some other guys who were trying to get some experience at the beginning of the season,” Northeast Nodaway coach Cody Green said. “We know what Lance can do and we knew 100 percent that he can pop the zone, mix things up, and it makes it tough for the hitters.”

The Bluejays and Runde answered the strong defensive and pitching start with a strong bottom half of the frame at the plate. Jordan Dannar led off the inning with a 4-pitch walk, then scored on a Runde single to left field.

Reece Gray and Jace Burns each reached on walks with still no outs in the inning. Freshman Brock Healy scored Runde on a fly ball to center field, but the WildCards turned it into a double play throwing out Gray at third base.

“We worked on hitting all week with all the rain,” Gray said. “Being inside and working on hitting helped a lot.”

Northeast Nodaway had two more runners reach base, but Stewartsville-Osborn worked its way through the first, allowing just two runs.

After a quiet second inning, Runde found some trouble in the third inning with two walks. Runde got to two outs, but a ground ball turned into two errors that allowed the Wildcards to score their first run.

Northeast Nodaway responded in the bottom of third with a leadoff double from Gray. Burns then snuck a liner into right field, scoring Gray to put the Bluejays up 3-1.

Runde cruised through the middle innings, sitting the WildCards down in order in the fourth and fifth innings.

“I just kept throwing strikes and let my infield and outfield do the work,” Runde said.

While Runde shutdown the Stewartsville-Osborn bats, the Bluejays also struggled to find offense in the second half of Thursday’s game. Northeast Nodaway had chances as they stranded nine runners in the win.

“We’ve got to finish,” Green said. “We’re getting a lot of guys on and leaving a lot of runners on base. We’re having a great start to innings, but then we just weren’t able to finish it tonight.”

Runde allowed his first and only hit of the game on a two-out single in the top of the sixth. The Bluejays’ started allowed one hit, three walks, and struck out six in seven innings pitched.

After Thursday’s result, Runde moved into the team lead in innings pitched, strikeouts, and leads the team with a 1.80 ERA.

“He pitched amazing,” Gray said. “He put it right where they could hit it and we could make plays and get some outs.”

Northeast Nodaway is now 2-1 in conference play with another round of 275 games coming next week. The Bluejays will stay in conference play next week with a trip to Hopkins on Monday.

The team will play out of conference on Tuesday with a trip to Maysville. Northeast Nodaway will then have some time off, not playing again until April 20 when they host South Holt.

“We just continue to build on that confidence and doing it every single day,” Green said. “Baseball is a game of consistency, and it’s not about if you can get one hit once in a blue moon. It’s about being able to do this every single time, or can you hit the ball hard every time and get some good plate appearances that make the pitcher work. And so it’s just about building confidence and giving these guys the experience that they need to that day in and day out.”