TOUGH FINISH: Cougars season ends in regional final

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The Greenfield-Central baseball team kneel in the outfield after losing the Regional Championship game to Avon 9-2 at Decatur Central on June 1,2019.

INDIANAPOLIS — Two programs that each had only won a solitary regional championship met with title number two on the line Saturday night at Decatur Central.

The Greenfield-Central Cougars got past a recent thorn in their side, Cathedral, and Avon downed host Decatur Central, setting up a second chance at semistate for one of the two teams.

The Cougars, who got to the regional final and 21 wins this season behind strong pitching and defense, had one inning of weakness against the Orioles. That was enough to spell disaster.

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A six-run Avon fourth inning gave the Orioles a big lead, and the Cougars couldn’t come all the way back, falling 9-2 in the regional final.

“To win the conference outright, to win the sectional … they’ve played pretty good baseball for several weeks,” Greenfield-Central coach Mark Vail said. “Tonight, we just didn’t get hits when we needed them early. It might’ve changed some things.”

Getting to the regional final in the first place meant getting past a team the Cougars hadn’t scored a run against in four previous tries, Cathedral. The Irish eliminated Greenfield-Central, 1-0, in eight innings in the 2017 regional semifinal and had topped the Cougars five straight times, shutting them out in four of those games.

Adam Hutchison had a big game on the mound and at the plate in the semifinal. He singled in the winning runs in the sixth inning, and he pitched a complete game, striking out 11 while walking four and hitting one.

He held Cathedral to five hits and just the one run, getting out of jams in the first three innings. The Irish got a runner to third in each frame, only for Hutchison to silence the offense with an inning-ending strikeout.

“Adam was very good again and got the job done,” Vail said.

The offense got the job done, too. The Cougars had eight hits in the game, including two from Hutchison and Owen Thresh, and picked up RBIs from Hutchison, Carson Gibson and Blake Wilson.

“I thought we did what we’ve been doing all year,” Vail said. “We stayed with it at the plate, we got our pitches to hit and we drove them. We got hits when we needed them. We did a really good job of that.”

The Cougars looked to keep their momentum going early into the regional championship game, taking a quick lead after a leadoff single in the second inning by pitcher Bradley McDowell. A sacrifice bunt moved the runner to second, a steal put a runner on third and a throwing error on the steal attempt gave the Cougars their first run.

Avon answered in the third after a triple and a sacrifice groundout, then took the lead an inning later.

A leadoff single prompted a pitching change, and Avon sophomore Henry Hesson welcomed Brady Mundell to the mound with a two-run home run, putting the Orioles up 3-1.

Avon wasn’t done there. Two RBI singles and a fielding error helped the Orioles push the lead to 7-1, putting the game nearly out of reach in the bottom of the fourth.

“We made the switch to Brady and it just didn’t work out,” Vail said. “He’d been throwing really well the last few weeks, and they just hit his pitches well.”

Greenfield-Central attempted a rally in the fifth, scoring one run before loading the bases with one out. All three runners were stranded — the second time in the game they left the bases loaded — and the offense couldn’t get going after that.

It was Avon’s first regional title since 1994. They’ll move on to play Columbus East in the semistate round.

The Cougars (21-8) are still searching for the second regional title in program history. Saturday’s final was the last game for seven Greenfield-Central seniors — Thresh, Wilson, McDowell, Lucas Scroggins, Avery Pruitt, Mason Bussel and Nick Atwood.

“They all played last year, and they really stepped up this year and matured, matured as hitters, really,” Vail said of the senior class. “They did a nice job defensively, did a nice job all the way around. The fact that they came back after last year, when they didn’t hit very well, and came back and hit the ball, led the offense, it was really nice.”

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Regional semifinal

Greenfield-Central 4, Cathedral 1

GC (21-7);000;012;1;—;4;8;1

C (19-7);000;010;0;—;1;5;2

WP: Adam Hutchison. LP: Peyton Schofield.

HR: 3B: Cole Vassilo (C). 2B: Owen Thresh (GC). RBI: Hutchison 2, Carson Gibson, Blake Wilson (GC); Vassilo (C).

Notable: Hutchison 7 IP, 11 K, 5 BB, 5 H, 1 R, 2-for 3, 2 RBI; Thresh 2-for-3, 2B, 2 R (GC). Schofield 6 IP, 11 K, 3 BB, 6 H, 3 R (C).

Regional final

Avon 9, Greenfield-Central 2

GC (21-8);010;010;0;—;2;7;2

A (20-13-1);001;620;X;—;9;9;1

WP: Kyren Power. LP: Brady Mundell.

HR: Henry Hesson (A). 3B: Cam Melvin (A). 2B: Hesson (A). RBI: Hesson 2, Nate Sidwell 2, Parker Sutton (A); Brady Mundell (GC).

Notable: Mundell 2-for-3, RBI.

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