After turning back Owen, 4-2, on March 31, Polk’s varsity baseball team fell to Hendersonville, 4-0, on Thursday, April 2 at Columbus.

Off this week for spring break, but now able to enjoy some practices, the Wolverines are now 6-7 overall, and 4-3 in Western Highlands Conference play. Owen and Hendersonville are both conference rivals.

Starting pitching has kept the Wolverines in most games of late, but base runners have not been abundant.

On Thursday, Polk coach Ty Stott gave Morgan Groves the ball against the Bearcats. The long-armed Groves responded well, mixing fastballs and off-speed offerings, but Hendersonville found a way to up its mark to 9-1 overall, and 4-1 in the conference. Groves pitched six-plus frames, giving way to Tyler Campbell in the seventh.

With his team up, 1-0, the Bearcats’ Jesse Gossett led off the top of the third by lining a pitch over the fence in center. Hendersonville made it 3-0 in that inning with a looping double, a stolen base and a sacrifice fly — actually a liner caught by Polk’s Mark Mazzilli in deep center. On the next play, Mazzilli raced in to snare a short fly.

Campbell led off the home third with a long double to the left field corner, but a line out sandwiched between two groundouts, left him 180 feet from scoring.

After six innings, the score remained, 3-0, Hendersonville.

Groves, still throwing hard, started the seventh, but his control was a bit off. The Bearcats’ first batter walked and stole second. The next batter was hit by an off-speed delivery, and both runners advance a base on a passed ball, making it second and third with none out.

Grooves retired the next batter on a groundout, but the runner on third scored, to make it 4-0.

With only three outs to go, Polk needed base runners, and lots of them, but managed only one, when Dequan Gary did what some other Polk batters have often been unable to do. With Hendersonville’s hard-throwing Noah Linhart in for relief, Gary, a left-handed hitter, went with a fastball, lining it to left for a single. That’s all the Wolverines could manage, as the next batter fanned to end the game.

“I don’t know how you could ask Morgan to pitch any better,” Stott said after the game. While Hendersonville, a hard-hitting team, produced a lot of baserunners, Stott was impressed that so few of them scored.

“Hendersonville is well-coached,” Stott added.

He knows that his own team has a great opportunity to improve, and when.

“The time of year we’ll be improving the most is right now,” Stott predicted . . . We have the ability to hit better than we’re hitting. We’re playing respectable baseball.”

If the Wolverines can take advantage of good practice conditions this week, they can still make plenty of noise in the conference. On April 14, the Wolverines visit Mitchell for a WHC game (varsity only, begins 4:30 p.m.). They host the Asheville Trailblazers on April 16 (varsity only, starting at 5 p.m.), and visit Madison on the April 17, with action set for 6 p.m. (again, varsity only as the JV season was set to end April 2).