FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon jumped ahead of the undefeated New Palestine Dragons early Friday, taking a 5-1 lead after just two innings.
From there, the Dragons simply walked their way to their 11th straight win and threw a slew of strikeouts to get their 12th.
Pitching was the deciding factor in both games of Friday’s doubleheader. Four Marauders pitchers combined to walk 12 New Palestine batters in Game 1 — four who were hit by pitches — allowing the Dragons to come out with an 8-5 victory. New Palestine won the second game of the doubleheader 4-2 thanks to a dominant pitching performance by junior Jack Walker, who struck out 13 and allowed just 2 hits.
After building the early four-run lead in the opener, the third inning proved disastrous for the Marauders (5-3, 3-2 HHC).
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New Palestine (12-0, 6-0 HHC) erased the entire deficit thanks in large part to a half dozen walks. After Myles Kost was hit by a pitch to start the inning, Mt. Vernon starting pitcher Caleb Rush got the next two batters out.
That’s when things fell apart for Mt. Vernon.
A Walker double scored Kost, and a walk and single loaded the bases. Walker came home on a wild pitch, and Rush walked Cameron Espich to again load the bases. Rush then walked Grant Weigand, bringing home another run and bringing a new pitcher, AJ Swingle, in for the Marauders.
Swingle walked the first two batters he faced, allowing the Dragons to take a 6-5 lead, before finally getting the third out of the inning on a grounder to short.
New Palestine scored their last two runs in the fifth, thanks to four more walks in that inning.
“We had some adversity tonight,” New Palestine coach Shawn Lyons said. “We preach how to handle adversity, and boy we had a lot of it in those first two innings tonight. It’s a testament to how they bounce back.”
Things had not started smoothly for the Dragons and starting pitcher Jake Garrison. An error at first base by Walker allowed the Marauders’ first batter of the game, Thomas Obergfell, to reach first.
Jaden Cappelletti then hit a ball hard to shortstop, where a throwing error allowed Obergfell to score from first and Cappelletti to advance to third on his infield single.
Garrison hit the next Marauders batter, and a sacrifice fly scored Cappelletti. After getting out of the first down 2-1, Garrison gave up four straight singles to start the second inning. A hit batter pushed across a run, and after two strikeouts looked to limit the damage, a grounder to shortstop provided another run after an errant throw to first pulled Walker off the bag.
New Palestine’s starter settled down after giving up the five early runs, though, retiring 10 straight batters and forcing the Marauders to go three up, three down in the third, fourth and fifth innings. He pitched a complete game, striking out seven and hitting two batters in earning the win.
Mt. Vernon used four different pitchers in the loss.
The nightcap started as a pitchers’ duel, with New Palestine’s Walker striking out six in the first three innings and Mt. Vernon’s Cole Cain striking out three in the first two.
But the Dragons offense came to life in the third inning again, with Jacob Bain leading off the inning with a single and doubles by Kost and Nick Rusche to follow. Rusche’s double scored both runners, giving New Palestine the early 2-0 lead.
Walker then drove Rusche in with a hard hit single up the middle, giving the Dragons a three-run lead after three.
With the way Walker was pitching — he struck out another seven batters in the final four innings — that was all the cushion the Dragons needed to roll to the doubleheader sweep.
“Jack Walker was fantastic,” Lyons said. “If Jack has his command, his stuff is pretty difficult to handle.”
Walker went 6 1/3 innings for the win. Two of his five walks were in the seventh inning, though, which helped the Marauders fight back and threaten a comeback.
Mt. Vernon scored two runs off Dragons reliever Cameron Pitzer but left the bases loaded as Pitzer got Dino Tharp to strike out to end the game.
