Throughout a topsy-turvy regular season, Indian Creek baseball coach Steve Mirizzi kept trying to stress to his team that they weren’t just going to be able to flip a switch when the postseason came along.
The joke’s on him.
A Braves team that stumbled into the state tournament having lost four of five is regaining the form it expected to have all season long, and is now bound for its fourth consecutive regional with eyes on another deep run.
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“As soon as we hit the (sectional), knew we that were going to win it,” senior Dustin Sprong said. “I don’t think we had any doubt at all; we just didn’t think anything of the past five games.”
This is where Indian Creek expected to be right now after returning most of its star power from a team that went 24-6 and advanced to the Class 3A semistate last spring. The ride was just supposed to be a bit smoother than it has been.
The Braves were riding high during a 5-1 start, the only blemish during that stretch a 12-inning loss at Monrovia. They dominated the competition in repeating as Johnson County champion, outscoring Center Grove, Edinburgh and Whiteland by a 41-4 margin.
That momentum didn’t last. After the county tournament, the Braves dropped three straight games against fellow Class 3A powers Edgewood and Northview to drop to 5-4, and they lost four games in the final week of the regular season, including their last three, to drop to 17-11.
Through it all, Mirizzi never lost faith in his squad.
“We just kind of lost our mojo there,” he said of the regular-season struggles. “I don’t know what it was; dealing with some injuries and things like that. But these guys have battled through adversity and just kept fighting.”
The fight was most visible in a sectional semifinal win over host Bishop Chatard. After going 0-3 in extra-inning games during the regular season, the Braves got one to go their way when it mattered most, pulling out a 5-4 victory in 10 innings.
Those prior struggles may have helped toughen the team’s resolve and help set up that breakthrough.
“It feels nice to finally get that win in an extra-inning game when you’re battling against a good team,” junior Xavier Ferris said. “I think it’s helped us in the long run to go through some bumpy rides and face some adversity.”
It also helped build some additional pitching depth. With senior workhorse Trevor Ankney limited to 20 regular-season innings due to some injuries, other arms needed to step up behind highly-touted ace Sprong — and many have delivered. Devyn Parr and Brett Coy, with a combined 11 innings of previous work between them, teamed on a no-hitter in the sectional opener against Herron.
The most notable development has been the rise of Ferris, who is 5-1 with a 1.02 earned-run average in 34 1/3 innings of work, the second highest workload on the team. He’s provided a nice contrast to hard-throwing veterans Ankney and Sprong.
“I’m not going to blow it by you with the fastball,” Ferris said, “but I can locate pretty well, and if I can just keep hitters off balance, I think I can do my job.”
With a revolving cast of clutch performers alongside established stars Ankney, Sprong and fellow senior Wyatt Phillips, the Braves showed flashes of brilliance even throughout the rough patches. That has certainly been true offensively, as Indian Creek has outscored opponents by more than a 2-to-1 margin (219 to 107) to this point. Nine different players have reached double digits in runs batted in.
Preventing runs, though, is usually a bigger indicator of state tournament success, and the Braves are well aware that they’ll need to be at least as sharp in the field as at the plate.
“Defense is key,” Ferris said. “We can’t have any costly errors or any passed balls when runners are on base. It’s just the little things and timely hits; you’ve got to try to avoid those as much as we can. And we’ve got to hit the ball.”
Playing big games in June is nothing new for the Braves, who head into Saturday’s regional with the comforting feeling that they’ve won on that field before — and in battles between closely-matched teams, every such edge helps.
“I don’t think that moment’s going to be too big for us,” Mirizzi said. “We’ve been in this position before, so I don’t think it’s too much for us to come in and have the expectations we have.”
Those expectations stemmed from the success of seasons past — but the fact that the road this year has been bumpier than anticipated may have given Indian Creek the toughness it needs to fulfill them.
“Every up and down, it was different, and it taught us something different to improve on,” Sprong said, “and come tournament time, we just put it all together. We know what we’re doing now.”
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Class 3A Crawfordsville Regional
Saturday
Indian Creek vs. Frankfort, 2 p.m.
Cardinal Ritter vs. Edgewood, 4:30 p.m.
Championship, 8 p.m.
Admission: $7 per session, $10 full day
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