For the Daily Journal
Center Grove hammered four home runs — including three in one inning — and tossed a two-hit shutout to rout Greenwood 18-0 in baseball Friday on the Woodmen’s home field.
The Trojans, who totaled 14 hits in the five-inning game, were held scoreless in the first inning but more than made up for it in the final four. Twice Center Grove scored six runs in an inning — including the third, when Mikey Wyman, Garrett Hill and Kyle Winkler each hit home runs to blow open the game.
“Their first pitcher was better than he showed. He was throwing three pitches for strikes and had us off balance a lot,” Center Grove coach Keith Hatfield said of Greenwood starter Oliver Rau. “But if he did leave a ball over the plate, we took advantage of it, and I think that was the difference tonight.”
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Rau walked one and hit one in the first inning but recovered to strike out three of the next four batters to end the threat.
But the Woodmen sophomore wasn’t as fortunate in the subsequent innings.
A walk to Eli Lawyer-Smith, an RBI single by Winkler and an RBI double by Corey Daffron in the second staked Center Grove to a 2-0 lead. Then came the third, when Wyman blasted a two-run home run, Hill followed with a solo shot to make it back-to-back and Winkler added a solo shot of his own.
By the time the third was over, Rau was in the dugout and the Trojans led 8-0.
“We walked the first batter of the game on four pitches and then got out of it, then in the second walked the first batter on four pitches and that’s when things went south,” Greenwood coach Andy Bass said. “You’ve got to be able to throw strikes and you’ve got to be able to field the ball.
“We didn’t do a very good job of throwing strikes and we counted four pop-ups that are routine that could have been caught and weren’t. Any time that happens, you’re extending the inning and wearing your pitchers.”
A total of four pitchers went to the mound for Greenwood; they walked five and hit five others.
Center Grove (4-4) played add-on, getting four more runs in the fourth and six more in the fifth. Ryan Sauter’s three-run homer highlighted the final inning.
Greenwood (1-4), meanwhile, managed only two hits against Trojan starter Josh Johnson and reliever Justin Tolle and got a runner to third only once.
“We’ve got a lot of young kids, and that’s no excuse. These young kids need to grow up quicker than they are,” Bass said. “I don’t mean physically. I understand that they’re young and they’re going to get better as time goes on, but we have to behaviorally mature quicker than we are or we’re not going to get much better.”
Sauter added a double and drove in three runs while Winkler, Daffron, Bryce Eblin and Alex Devaney had two hits each. Shawn Grider had a hit and three RBIs.
Josh Johnson struck out four and walked three in three innings to get the win for Center Grove.
Greenwood returns to action today when it travels to Triton Central. Center Grove visits Franklin Central on Monday.
