Though Wednesday’s game was far more dramatic than it maybe needed to be, Franklin baseball will take conference wins any way it can get them, style points be damned.
Jackson Henry pitched five-plus strong innings and helped himself by going 3 for 3 at the plate as the Grizzly Cubs kept themselves in the thick of the Mid-State Conference race by holding on for a 5-3 home win over rival Whiteland on Wednesday.
With back-to-back victories over the Warriors, the Grizzly Cubs (8-4, 5-1) took sole possession of second place in the league, staying one game back of Mooresville.
“Last night (an 8-0 Franklin win) was a little bit easier; we knew today — those guys are a well coached, hard-nosed young ball club, and not an easy win by any means,” Franklin coach Ryan Feyerabend said. “It was down to the last pitch there.”
Unable to crack Whiteland starter Jonathan Moreno through the first three innings, the Grizzly Cubs finally got to him in the fourth. After Drew Doty led off with a walk, pinch runner Clay Pinnick moved to third on a single by Henry and scored the game’s first run on a Pryce Rucker sacrifice fly. With one out, Beau Baker singled, took third on an RBI double by Xavier Brown and scored on a Landen Basey single to make it 3-0.
Max Clark then doubled to the wall in right center, scoring Brown, but Clark and Basey both got hung up between third and home on the throw. Basey was tagged out at the plate and Clark wound up being stranded at third as Moreno avoided further damage.
Those four runs, though, proved to be the difference.
“We just had to stay back (on pitches),” Henry said. “We hadn’t really faced that speed, and we just had to stay back and focus on what he was throwing us.”
Whiteland (8-3, 4-2) got on the board without a hit in the top of the fifth. Blake Riddle and Peyton Emberton reached on consecutive walks and advanced on a wild pitch. Riddle came home on Maalik Perkins’ sac fly to left, but Henry induced a pop out to escape the inning. Franklin got that run back in the bottom of the frame, as Henry hit a one-out double and courtesy runner Cooper Taylor scored on a Whiteland throwing error during the next at-bat.
The Warriors chased Henry in the sixth when Caden Wilburn drew a leadoff walk and Caden Ferguson singled him to third. Logen Devenport came on in relief and put out the fire, getting a strikeout and a groundout. Wilburn made it to the plate during the latter play, cutting the deficit to 5-2, but the Grizzly Cubs got the third out seconds later by cutting down the trailing runner at third.
Things got interesting in the seventh, as two walks and a Drew Helton single loaded the bases and brought Wilburn to the plate as the go-ahead run with two out. Another base on balls pushed Riddle across to cut the deficit to two, but Devenport was able to induce a game-ending grounder for the final out.
“We battled,” Whiteland coach Scott Sherry said. “We gave ourselves a chance there, and that’s all you can ask for. … Three runs isn’t going to win too many high school games. We’ve got to score more than three.”
