GREENFIELD — Greenfield-Central’s sophomore class flexed its muscles in Tuesday’s Hoosier Heritage Conference baseball battle with rival New Palestine.
At Molinder Field, with all runs knocked in by the Class of 2023, the first-place Cougars defeated the Dragons 5-2.
The win, coinciding with Mt. Vernon’s victory over Pendleton Heights on Tuesday, keeps the Cougars and Marauders in a tie for the HHC’s top spot. At the halfway point of the league season, both teams are 6-1. New Palestine dropped to 3-4.
G-C is 8-4 overall. New Pal is 5-8.
The Dragons and Cougars play the second of their two-game set at New Palestine today at 5:30 p.m.
“They hit the ball for us (Tuesday),” Greenfield-Central head coach Mark Vail said of Tuesday’s RBI guys, Grant Shepherd, A.J. Oden and Connor Sims. “It’s a team effort, and tonight it was the sophomores and other nights it has been our seniors. It’s good to know we have people spread out through the lineup that can do the job for us.”
Trailing 1-0 after one-half inning, Shepherd and Oden hit first-inning solo home runs to give the Cougars the lead.
In the second inning, after a walk to pitcher Parker Stanley and a two-base throwing error. Sims hit a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring courtesy runner Jaden McGee.
Shepherd had the only other RBI for the home team.
In the fifth inning, Sims led off with a walk and moved to second on a single by senior Lance McKee. Shepherd followed with an RBI-single. When the ball was bobbled by the New Palestine left fielder, the speedy McKee followed Sims across the plate for a 5-1 advantage.
While the young kids did the hitting, the veteran was taking care of business on the mound.
Stanley, a senior, after giving up one run in the first, retired 12 in a row before giving up two, two-out, fifth-inning singles.
His young teammates helped him out, giving him a 2-1 lead when he returned to the mound for the second inning.
“I knew I had some runs up there to help me, so I was just trying to throw strikes. I didn’t want any free base runners,” Stanley said. “I was just trying to throw strikes and mix up my pitches so they couldn’t just sit on a pitch and hit it.”
Stanley went 6.1 innings and improved his record to 3-1. He struck out six and did not walk any. He gave up seven hits and only one of the two New Palestine runs was earned.
Another sophomore Andrew Zellers came in to close out the seventh, retiring the only two batters faced, halting a Dragons rally attempt that had plated one seventh-inning run.
New Palestine got on the board first. Leadoff hitter Carter Stogsdill hit the game’s first pitch to right field for a single. He stole second base, went to third on a balk and scored on a sacrifice fly to right field by Zayden Stiller.
The Cougars quickly answered with a pair of first-inning solo home runs. As Stogsdill hit the first pitch delivered to him in the top half of the inning, Shepherd did the same, depositing it out of Molinder Field to tie the game, 1-1.
Three batters later, and with two outs, Oden hit a deep fly over the left field fence for a 2-1 lead.
“I knew it was going to be a fastball first pitch,” Shepherd said. “I knew we needed some runners on to get that run back. It was right where I wanted it so I took a swing at it and hit a home run.”
Shepherd and Oden combined for four of the Cougars five hits off New Palestine sophomore starter Blaine Nunnally, who finished with eight strikeouts in 5.0 innings of work.
Oden also had a lead-off double in the fourth inning.
“Our pitching did a nice job tonight,” New Palestine coach Shawn Lyons said. “With the wind blowing out in a small ballpark you figure you are going to have to score some runs to win. We had several chances to get back in the ballgame when it was 2-1 and 3-1.
“We were right there. We were a big hit away from being right in the game and never got it. They did a nice job of mixing speeds on us.”
Reise Quillen and Maddox Manes each had doubles and two-hit games for the Dragons.
With Mt. Vernon’s win over Pendleton Heights, the Cougars and Marauders have a two-game lead over the third-place Arabians (4-3) and Yorktown (5-4) which has played two more conference games than the league leaders.
Pendleton Heights and Mt. Vernon are also scheduled to play the second game of their two-game set tonight.
