CARMEL
Only Center Grove baseball players occupied the right-field grass at Hartman Field following Wednesday’s 14-4 loss to Carmel.
For a good 10 minutes, they met, perhaps clearing the air about what kind of team they aspire to be starting with Friday’s game at Greenwood.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryCenter Grove used four pitchers in as many innings while dropping to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference standings.
“It’s up to them,” Trojans coach Keith Hatfield said of his players after watching his team be on the wrong end of a game stopped midway through the fifth inning due to the 10-run rule. “We believe in them. They have to believe in themselves.
“We can’t keep coming out and doing the same thing. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over with no change. We have to come out ready to play and not take anything for granted.”
Trojans starting pitcher Jacob Gilcrest struggled mightily with his control, hitting the first two Carmel batters and walking four of the five batters he faced.
The other batter, senior Will Richter, belted a double off the right-field fence in a first inning that ended with the Greyhounds leading 5-0 on only two hits.
A leadoff double by the Trojans’ Garret Hill in the top of the second opened what would be a two-run inning. Jacob Johnson’s one-out triple to right scored Hill, while Josh Johnson’s bloop single to center gave Center Grove its second run.
Hard-throwing senior righty Bryce Tidd relieved Gilcrest with no out in the first and pitched into the third. Justin Tolle eventually came in for Tidd in the third inning in which Carmel erupted for six more runs to take an 11-2 command.
The Greyhounds sent 10 batters to the plate in the third, producing five hits.
Josh Johnson’s two-run home run over the left-field fence pulled Center Grove closer in the top of the fourth, but Carmel then tacked on three runs of its own in the bottom half.
Four of the Trojans’ hits were of the extra-base variety, but Hatfield wasn’t pleased.
“Even when we were scoring runs, we weren’t doing a whole lot right,” he said. “We were taking way too many fastballs and were still too timid at the plate. Give credit to Carmel. Their pitcher (junior Drew Olssen) got comfortable, and he was throwing whatever pitch whenever he wanted for a strike.
“When someone is able to do that, it’s hard to hit.”
Along with his homer, Josh Johnson also had a single earlier in the game to finish as the lone Center Grove player with two hits.
