Somewhere in the leaves and sticks beyond the outfield fence at the Center Grove baseball complex sits the ball Caden Curry deposited there early Wednesday evening.
Not next to the fence, either, but maybe 20 or so feet past it.
The junior first baseman’s two-out grand slam in the bottom of the second inning wound up being huge for the Class 4A No. 3 Trojans as they dominated second-ranked Carmel early, then held on for dear life in a 9-8 win.
“That was a good shot,” said Curry of his fourth round-tripper of the season, mildly understating the 2-2 pitch offered up by Greyhounds junior reliever Aidan McConnell that the left-handed hitting Curry sent sailing over the fence in right-center field.
“I got hold of one earlier this year about like that at the Noblesville tournament, but that was a great feeling to have again. He started off the count with a lot of off-speed and curveballs and changeups, and then I think he tried to come back with a heater and I just got hold of it.”
The victory improved Center Grove to 19-3 overall and catapults it to the top of the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference standings at 11-1.
“(Curry) had a great batting practice session before the game,” Trojans coach Keith Hatfield said. “You could tell he was just locked in. He didn’t miss that one.”
Should the Trojans sweep next week’s home-and-home against Pike, it would be the program’s 13th conference baseball title and fifth under Hatfield. The Greyhounds drop to 18-2-1 and 10-1-1.
After building a 9-0 advantage through three innings, Center Grove appeared on the verge of making quick work of Carmel, which had scored a 4-3 victory in nine innings when the teams met on Tuesday.
Center Grove started with three runs in the bottom of the first. A Carmel throwing error put the Trojans ahead, 1-0, and sophomore catcher’s Grant Sawa’s two-out single to left with the bases loaded provided the other runs.
Curry’s blast highlighted his team’s four-run second; Center Grove added two more runs in the third frame, starting with Sawa’s leadoff single, a Drew Culbertson single and junior second baseman Sam Griffith’s double to the center-field fence.
Junior Jacob Wilson, the Trojans’ starting pitcher, lasted five innings, allowing four hits and striking out four. Wilson was in the game when Carmel tallied three unearned runs in the top of the fifth, eventually giving way to relievers Aidan Murphy and Dylan Alting.
A senior, Alting worked the suspenseful seventh inning, eventually getting Carmel’s Daniel Cunningham to fly out to right fielder Garrison Barile to end the game.
Hatfield knew the Greyhounds were capable of the type of comeback they mounted Wednesday.
“We were talking in the fourth how bad we wanted to put them away because we knew they were capable of doing that,” he said. “It’s definitely not how we drew it up, but a win is a win.”
The schedule doesn’t lighten up for Center Grove, which travels to county rival Franklin on Friday. The teams will finish off the remainder of the Johnson County tournament final, which was suspended by rain last month, before playing their regularly scheduled game.
