In a star-studded game pitting a surefire top-10 Major League Baseball draft pick against a team loaded with future Division I college players, of course it was an unheralded backup catcher that wasn’t even on his team’s pre-printed roster who wound up having the last word.
Sophomore Easton Smith, filling in behind the plate for injured senior Grant Sawa, delivered a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning to lift Class 4A No. 3 Center Grove to an 8-7 triumph in the championship game of the Johnson County tournament on Saturday afternoon.
“I was just thinking to myself, ‘Swing,’” Smith said. “Come in the clutch and get a hit. Not looking for anything huge — just looking for a base hit.”
After Franklin (3-2) had tied the game up with three runs — all with two out — in the top of the seventh, the Trojans responded. Kobe Cherry was hit by a pitch and replaced by pinch runner Brendan Ealy, who moved over to second on a Cameron Alford walk. Smith, who had flied out and struck out in his two previous plate appearances, gapped a base hit to the wall in right-center field off of Grizzly Cub reliever Noah DeArmitt, allowing Ealy to easily motor in with the deciding run.
“He’s got plenty of talent to do everything,” Center Grove coach Keith Hatfield said of Smith. “He’s a good kid who came up big. Leveled out his swing a little bit, got the ball out of the air and won it.”
Smith’s heroics were made necessary by the Grizzly Cubs’ furious rally in the top of the inning. A Braeden Burton single and a Nash Netter walk loaded the bases, and Landen Basey drew another walk that forced Trevor Launonen home and brought Max Clark to the plate.
With a handful of MLB scouts watching the future first-rounder intently from the stands, Clark laced a two-run single into right field to make it 7-7.
It was that type of game throughout, with both teams trading haymakers.
After Center Grove starting pitcher Caden Cornett struck out the side in Franklin’s half of the first, the Trojans (6-0) scored a pair of runs to provide him with an early lead. Drew Culbertson’s double to the wall in right center scored Noah Coy from first, and Culbertson — a University of Missouri signee who finished the game 3 for 3 — later came home himself on a wild pitch.
The Grizzly Cubs loaded the bases on a single and a pair of walks in the second inning, but Cornett managed to escape unscathed by striking out Basey with Clark waiting on deck. He wasn’t as lucky in the third, when Clark drew a leadoff walk and trotted in after Beau Baker launched a game-tying blast over the wall in left center to make it 2-2.
Center Grove, though, quickly answered Baker’s shot with one of its own.
Coy reached on a one-out single to start the bottom of the third for the Trojans. The University of Cincinnati recruit then stole second, took third on a passed ball and scored on Culbertson’s sacrifice fly to right field. After Garrison Barile walked and Evan Zapp was hit by a pitch, A.J. Beggs turned on a 2-2 pitch and hooked it just inside the left-field foul pole, stretching the Trojans’ advantage to 6-2.
That cushion proved critical before long.
The Grizzly Cubs rallied for two two-out runs in the fourth, as consecutive singles by Basey, Clark and Jackson Henry generated one run before Clark scored another on an error to make it a two-run game. A pinch-hit sacrifice fly from the Trojans’ Connor Liford plated Beggs to make it 7-4 in the bottom of the fifth, though, and the host side looked to be in good shape when senior reliever Christian Brown held Franklin scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings (with an assist from Coy, who made a diving snare of a line drive to end the sixth with a runner on third).
But Franklin refused to go away quietly, pulling even on Clark’s third single of the game. The visitors still had runners on the corners and a chance to take the lead for the first time, but Brady Walker, who had come on for Brown two batters earlier, was able to regain his composure and strike out Henry to avoid greater damage.
Smith then came through with the title-clinching hit.
“We didn’t play our best,” Hatfield said, “but good teams find a way to win, and we did. I was proud of our guys more times than not today, but — good thing it’s early. A lot of stuff that we need to clean up, but we’re extremely happy to get this trophy.”
Whiteland made the Trojans earn their way into the final with a narrow 1-0 victory earlier in the afternoon. Center Grove mustered just three hits off of Warriors starter Drew Helton but managed to small-ball its way to a run in the third inning when Culbertson walked, stole a base and came home on a sacrifice fly by Beggs. The Warriors appeared to have tied the game up in the sixth inning on a Trojan throwing error during an attempted double play, but the umpire ruled a Whiteland baserunner out on the play, negating the run.
Jacob Murphy finished with a four-hit shutout for Center Grove, striking out seven without a walk.
Franklin coasted past Greenwood in the other semi, 8-2. Winning pitcher Blake Smythe helped his cause with three RBIs, while Clark was 2 for 2 with two walks and four runs scored.
Though the Grizzly Cubs didn’t end up coming away with the crown, coach Ryan Feyerabend was happy with what he saw from his squad.
“We hadn’t seen a really good arm yet this year, so I was really excited to get to (the final),” he said. “We knew we’d see a really good arm, and I thought we did a really nice job battling early, trying to get some runs and have some quality at-bats.”
Meanwhile, being able to finish off a pair of one-run games should give the Trojans more confidence if and when similar situations arise in big games later this season.
“It definitely gives us some good feelings, but it also tells us we have stuff to work on,” Smith added. “We always have stuff to work on, but as long as we can keep on working on that stuff, then we’ll be fine.”
