HCAW opent seizoen met drie zeges en ontketent productieve aanval

HCAW did not just open the season with three wins. It opened with a loud reminder that its rebuilt lineup can still punish pitchers, stacking 39 hits across one opening weekend and turning the first test of the Lucky Day Honkbal Hoofdklasse into a statement from Bussum.

The sweep started in a game that stayed tight until HCAW cracked it open late. UVV twice grabbed an early lead, but HCAW answered, flipped a 2-3 deficit into a 4-3 edge in the fifth inning and then blew the game apart with seven runs in the sixth. The 13-3 win in eight innings came with 12 hits, including extra-base damage from Mees Robberse, and a winning start on the mound from Kaj Timmermans. UVV hung around for much of the game, but HCAW finally broke it after Timmermans settled in and the visitors helped along the way with an error and a wild pitch.

The second meeting on Saturday was even tighter. Ruendrick Piternella’s home run helped push the game to 2-2, and HCAW still needed extra innings to finish the job. Three straight hits delivered the decisive run in a 3-2 win, with Arij Fransen earning the victory and Jesse van Es closing it out. It was the kind of game that showed HCAW can win in more than one way, not just by running the score up.

Then came the exclamation point. Against a tired UVV group, HCAW scored 11 times in the first inning and rolled to a 17-7 mercy-rule win. The attack finished with 20 hits in that game alone, and Terrance Heemskerk added both a double and a home run. Taken together, the three games produced 39 hits: 12 in the opener, seven in the extra-inning win and 20 in the finale.

That total carries real weight because HCAW went into 2026 having lost almost a full roster over the winter. René Baltus, now the head coach of HCAW heren 1, had to get a heavily changed group into rhythm fast, and the opening weekend suggested he got the response he needed. In a Hoofdklasse where early momentum often shapes confidence, HCAW’s sweep gave Bussum an immediate place near the top of the conversation, just as HCAW and Neptunus did after the first weekend in 2025. For now, the clearest early sign in the league is simple: HCAW’s offense may already be ahead of schedule.