Center Grove’s Garrison Barile slides safely across home plate during Friday’s game at Greenwood.
Sam Findley | For the Daily Journal
Greenwood’s field was the home away from home for the Center Grove baseball team Friday evening.
It probably wouldn’t have mattered where the game was played — Greenwood, Center Grove or Victory Field — as the Class 4A No. 1 Trojans pounced on Greenwood early and won handily 14-4 in five innings.
The game was supposed to be played at Center Grove’s home diamond, but the school was one of a rash of Indiana schools that received a bomb threat in the morning and instead of postponing or cancelling the game, Greenwood agreed to play host. The Woodmen still served as the visiting team.
“We cleaned it up defensively. I don’t know if we took the greatest at-bats, but we found a way to score 14 runs,” Center Grove coach Keith Hatfield said. “(Greenwood) gave us a share of those for sure, but we came up with big hits when we needed to.”
After an erratic top half of the first — in which Greenwood scored twice thanks to a double and two Trojan errors — Center Grove (9-0) atoned for that quickly with five runs, two courtesy of Drew Culbertson’s blast to center field on a 1-1 count.
Three walks, a hit batsman, a passed ball and a wild pitch led to the other runs.
The Trojans then tacked on runs in every inning but the third and kept the Woodmen off the scoreboard the rest of the way.
Center Grove’s starting pitcher, junior Conner Vander Luitgaren, pitched four solid innings, surrendering only two hits. Vander Luitgaren then gave way to senior Caden Cornett, who kept the Woodmen off base in his lone inning of work.
It was the fourth straight game the Trojans have scored eight or more runs.
Leading the way for Center Grove was Culbertson, who scored three runs and drove in two. Fellow senior Evan Zapp also scored three times and added a double and three RBIs.
Leadoff man Noah Coy had a single and also scored thrice. Catcher A.J. Beggs and freshman DH Kobe Cherry each had a single and two RBIs for the winners.
Getting the doubles for Greenwood (4-4) were Cade Kelly and Ethan King; Kelly also scored and had two RBIs.
“(This) wasn’t the cleanest game in the world, but we got better as it went on, especially on defense,” Hatfield said. “(Vander Luitgaren) did great. I was really pleased with how he was throwing. Cornett did well with his inning too.”
The turnaround for the Trojans is rather quick, as they travel to Jeffersonville this afternoon. The Woodmen get back to Mid-State Conference play when they host Decatur Central next Tuesday.
