For the Daily Journal
Eli Lawyer-Smith and Garrett Hill each smashed two-run home runs and Hunter Burnett was outstanding in relief to lead Center Grove to a 9-5 win against Carmel at home in baseball Tuesday.
The home runs by Lawyer-Smith and Hill, in the fourth and sixth innings, respectively, broke open a tie game and Burnett made them stand up, setting down eight of the final nine Greyhounds he faced to secure the win.
The victory not only brought Center Grove back to .500 on the season, but allowed the Trojans to take the first game of a crucial early-season series against their Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference rivals.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“It was a very, very big win,” Center Grove coach Keith Hatfield said. “We’ve had some injuries; we’ve had some guys go down unexpectedly. But we had some big senior leadership by those guys tonight, especially Eli Lawyer-Smith. I’m not sure he did anything wrong tonight.”
Both starting pitchers struggled mightily on yet another frigid night, with Center Grove’s Jacob Johnson and Carmel’s Aiden Bradbury combining to walk 11 batters and hit three and neither truly getting into any kind of groove.
Johnson had it the worst. The senior battled in and out of trouble all night and ended up walking seven. But rather than giving in, he gutted out 32/3 innings before turning the ball over the Burnett.
“It helps when you have a lead. You’re tight when you’re going bad, but not that tight when you have the lead,” Hatfield said of his pitcher. “He never lost us the lead, which is big. It wasn’t his best stuff, but he was on short rest. He did everything we needed him to.”
Center Grove (3-3, 2-1 MIC) staked Johnson to an early 5-2 lead, getting three runs in the second on doubles by Lawyer-Smith and A.J. Poynter, and two more in the third on a two-run single by Josh Johnson.
But the wheels fell off for Jacob Johnson in the fourth when five walks — the last two with the bases loaded — led to three runs and allowed Carmel to tie the game.
The fifth run was actually scored after Burnett came on in relief and threw a wild pitch, but the senior shut the Greyhounds down after that. Other than a hit batter in the sixth — who was erased on a caught stealing — Burnett was nearly perfect.
Lawyer-Smith hammered a two-run home run with Hill aboard in the bottom of the fourth, and two innings later Hill launched a monstrous shot that cleared the scoreboard in left to give the Trojans their final runs.
Burnett struck out one, walked one and hit one in 3 1/3 innings to pick up the win. Mikey Wyman added two hits and scored a run for the Trojans.
The two teams will be back at it today, when the action switches to Carmel.
