By Dustin Dopirak
For the Daily Journal
MOORESVILLE
Drue Young could sense that something was off and the Center Grove coaching staff could sense it too. His velocity, the bite on his breaking ball, his energy and rhythm were all just a little bit not right.
It wasn’t too much of a problem for the senior right-hander in the first inning of Wednesday’s Class 4A sectional opener against Martinsville, but it became one in the second when he gave up a two-out RBI double to Artesians third baseman Dason Bell.
“First inning he was working a little too slow,” Center Grove coach Keith Hatfield said. “Myself and (pitching coach Jeff) Montfort talked about it and basically, we decided which one was going to say it. I told (Montfort) you’d better tell him, because I’m not happy with his tempo right now.”
But after that, Young got his head, his rhythm and his footwear right and proceeded to shut Martinsville down for the final five innings. He struck out seven batters in a complete-game victory, leading Center Grove to a 3-1 win, the first postseason victory for the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference champion Trojans (26-4) since 2016.
Center Grove faces Franklin on Monday at 10 a.m. The Grizzly Cubs held on to defeat host Mooresville, 3-2, in the nightcap late Wednesday.
Young entered Wednesday’s first game sporting a 1.10 ERA and knowing the Trojans, ranked No. 3 in the state in Class 4A, were expecting a lot from their ace. The weight of that pressure seemed to be holding him back.
“First inning I was working slower than usual and the second inning was not the best with locating or anything like that,” Young said. “I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel like I was driving off my backside very well. I didn’t feel like I was finishing. It was sort of all of the above.”
Young decided that a lot had to be fixed and that included his shoes. Mooresville’s is a turf field and he was wearing turf shoes, but he wasn’t feeling right so he changed into molded cleats.
He admitted the difference might have been just mental, that making a change of any kind made him feel like he was making a new start, but he felt better almost instantly.
“I made a change mid-game and I really felt like I was me again,” Young said. “Like Drue Young back there on the mound again. The tempo was up. The fastball speed picked up. The breaking ball speed picked up. The changeup speed picked up. Everything went my way from there.”
When Drue Young feels like himself, he’s one of the toughest pitchers in the area to hit. He has very good velocity on his fastball for a pitcher who stands just 5-foot-8, and a vicious curveball with sharp downward action and just enough horizontal break to make opposing hitters look silly. He can throw it in the dirt for swings and misses and keep it in the zone for a pitch no one wants to swing at.
From the fourth inning on, the curveball was doing exactly what he wanted it to do and Martinsville couldn’t do anything with it.
“It gives me the most confidence in the world,” Young said. “When I can throw that for a strike, even when somebody half-swings or swings at one in the dirt, it gives me so much confidence. It progressed as the game went on. It wasn’t spinning very well the first three innings, but going into the fourth, I really thought I had a good feel for it. I was throwing it harder, sequencing it better off my fastball. It worked. It just felt really good after the third inning.”
The run Young allowed in the second was actually unearned, as Martinsville’s Riddick Bolton reached on an error before scoring on Bell’s double. After the second, Young allowed just three base runners — one on an error and two on singles — and none of them passed second base. After surrendering a leadoff single to start the fifth, he retired the last nine batters he faced in order, striking out the last two batters he faced and three of the last five he saw. He finished the game throwing under 90 pitches.
Martinsville right-hander Braxton Wilson was tough to hit as well, but Center Grove got to him just enough. Sophomore Garrison Barile drove in first baseman Caden Curry in the second with an RBI triple to the right-center field gap. Then in the third, junior third baseman Owen Guilfoy drove in center fielder Mitchell Evans with a double into the same gap.
And Evans gave the Trojans a desperately needed insurance run with a gutsy move on the basepaths in the top of the seventh. Martinsville reliever Kevin Reed threw a pitch in the dirt that the catcher Bolton blocked, but it got just far enough outside the red box around home plate. Evans read the pitch well, broke for home and slid in just ahead of the tag to make it 3-1.
“When I’m on third and I’m looking at home, I saw it was going toward the dirt,” Evans said. “It hit him and I saw it was going to the outer part of the circle. By that time I knew I could just take off and make it. I knew it would be kind of close, but I’m confident enough in my speed that I can make it.”
And so the Trojans took the critical first step to postseason success that they haven’t made in five years.
“First win since 2016 obviously means a lot,” Evans said. “Getting the first win in sectionals, I think we can get the train rolling now. We have a bunch of momentum now.”
In the late game, Franklin sophomore left-hander Max Clark struck out 11 batters in five innings and reliever Logen Devenport struck out four in two critical innings of relief to lead the Grizzly Cubs past the host Pioneers.
Clark retired the first 12 batters he faced, nine of them by strikeout, but ran into trouble in the fifth when he gave up two runs on a sacrifice fly by Mooresville catcher Brody Bond and a double by left fielder Caden Bradley. Clark then walked the first two batters he faced in the sixth before Franklin coach Ryan Feyerabend decided to bring in Devenport.
After inducing a pop-up, Devenport hit the second batter he faced to load the bases with one out, but he struck out the next two to get out of the inning. He gave up a single to start the seventh, but catcher Ethan VanLannen caught the runner leaning off the base and picked him off. Devenport retired the next two batters to end the game, punctuating the victory with a strikeout.
Franklin scored its three runs on just four hits. Senior left fielder Grant Roberts and junior first baseman Xavier Brown both scored runs on wild pitches after reaching on a fielder’s choice and walk, respectively. Roberts drove in the deciding third run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth, scoring right fielder Jace Fowler.
