New Palestine took advantage of Whiteland mistakes to pull away for an 11-7 road win in baseball Thursday.
The visiting Dragons, ranked ninth in Class 3A, collected only six hits, but four Warrior errors and nine walks were more than enough to allow New Pal to stay unbeaten on the season.
“There are three phases to the game — pitching, defense and hitting. We hit the ball well and did some really good things offensively,” said Whiteland coach Scott Sherry, whose squad amassed 11 hits in the game. “The other two phases weren’t up to par today.”
New Palestine (10-0) scored its runs in bunches, getting two in the first inning and three each in the second, fourth and seventh innings to pull away.
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But Whiteland (5-4), on the strength of that hitting, did the best it could to stay on the Dragons’ heels.
A walk, an error and a two-run double by Cameron Pitzer staked New Palestine to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, but the Warriors quickly answered with two runs of their own in the bottom half thanks to RBI groundouts by Luke Helton and Nick Carrizales.
The Dragons scored three runs in the second on a two-run single by Colby Jenkins and three Whiteland walks and the Warriors came back with two runs in the third to close the gap to 5-4.
New Palestine finally got a bit breathing room in fourth when Jake Garrison smashed a three-run home run, and the Dragons added three more runs in the seventh to go ahead 11-4.
“We try to take advantage of (the other team’s mistakes). Then we steal a couple of bases and then got the big knock behind it,” New Palestine coach Shawn Lyons. “It was a nice mid-week win. We’ve got a big conference game tomorrow and three or four good pitchers ready to go, and the guys that went tonight are a work in progress but I thought they did a good job of keeping them off balance.”
Jaden Jaques (2-0) started and picked up the win for New Palestine after allowing five runs, three of them earned, on seven hits in four-plus innings with a strikeout and three walk. Brother Joshua Jaques worked the final three innings, giving up two runs in the seventh, to pick up his second save of the season.
Carrizales (0-1) was the first of three Whiteland pitchers to take the hill and suffered the loss. He gave up five runs — three earned — on three hits in two innings with a pair of strikeouts, but he also walked five batters.
Trevor Spilker gave up three runs in two innings of relief and Lukas Cline allowed three unearned runs in three innings for the Warriors.
Chase Bennett went 3 for 5 with a stolen base to lead Whiteland’s offense, while Helton had a single and a double. Alexander Reed and Iyan Pelfree each added doubles.
Jenkins went 2 for 4 with three RBIs and scored four runs for New Palestine. Garrison drove in four runs and Pitzer had three RBIs for the Dragons.
New Palestine hosts Mt. Vernon in a big doubleheader today. Whiteland faces West Vigo in the opening round of the Franklin Central Invitational on Saturday.
