NEW PALESTINE — Five batters into the game, the New Palestine baseball team looked to be dialed in offensively, greeting Warren Central starter Montrez Hernley with five line drives.
While the Class 4A No. 2 Dragons posted an 11-1 victory in six innings for their 16th straight victory to start the year, it wasn’t the line drives that produced the offense, but a steady stream of contact in the late innings that allowed the Dragons to pull away, finishing the game with a six-run, six-hit final inning.
“We hit several balls right at them, and then we made up for it in the last inning where we hit blooper, blooper, blooper and score a ton of runs,” New Palestine coach Shawn Lyons said.
Lyons’ team is 16-0 on the season, but what looked like a comfortable score was anything but, as the game hung in the balance until the final at-bat. New Palestine nursed a 2-1 lead through the game’s halfway point before adding two in the fourth and another in the fifth to gain some breathing room.
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The Dragons fell behind early, as Warren Central leadoff batter Hunter Shanklin ripped a triple and scored on the lead half of a double-steal when the throw came home late.
But New Palestine came back in the bottom of the inning as the first five batters hammered pitches. It led to a two-run inning, as Nick Rusche hit the first pitch for a line-drive single and scored on Colby Jenkins’ triple. Jack Walker later singled, but two straight hard-hit flyballs found gloves to quell the threat. New Palestine stranded runners in scoring position the next two innings.
After Warren Central’s aggressiveness took a run in the first, the Dragons held the Warriors off the board. Dragon senior Cameron Espich (4-0) pitched around two baserunners in the third, inducing a two-out grounder to end the threat.
In the fifth, an error and two singles loaded the bases for Warren Central with one out. Rusche caught a foul pop behind third base and then gunned down the lead runner tagging and trying to score to end the threat.
“We had on the board ‘no Monday blues,’ but we had Monday blues,” Lyons said. “You could see it in warmup, you could see it in batting practice, you could see it in our approach.
“We play 28 games. It’s amazing that Major League players play 162 games, and it’s a grind every night. We expect better because of who we are and the target and our expectations.”
Espich battled through 5 2/3 innings, allowing four hits and fanning eight despite often pitching from behind in the count.
“When he gets out in front and over the top and his mechanics are good, he’s fine,” Lyons said. “When he doesn’t finish, he doesn’t have command he needs to have. He settled down a little bit. He wasn’t quite as efficient as he was at Knightstown (in his last outing Wednesday), but that’s just baseball.”
New Palestine gained some breathing room with two runs in the fourth. Espich led off with a single, and courtesy runner Ian Tolle stole second and scored on back-to-back wild pitches.
Rusche walked and scored on Walker’s two-out single. Pitzer led off the fifth with a double, which eventually led to a run on a passed ball. New Palestine then scored six runs on six hits in the final inning, with Tyler Young starting it off with a line-drive single up the middle.
Walker and Pitzer doubled and Jacob Bain had a two-run, two-out single. Rusche and Luke Greene also had RBI in the inning.
Walker was 3 for 3 to lead New Palestine’s 13-hit attack. Pitzer was 2 for 4 with two doubles and an RBI. Grant Wiegand also had two hits.
The Dragons next play Wednesday at No. 10 Zionsville, the first of two games against ranked teams in the coming week. After a Saturday trip to conference foe Delta, New Palestine travels to No. 3 Fishers Monday.
“Zionsville is a very good program. They’ve got most of their kids back from their semistate team two years ago,” Lyons said. “They’re an outstanding hitting team. A lot of people I talk to say they may be one of the best hitting teams in the state.
“I’d call this a midterm. It won’t define us, win or lose, but it’s an opportunity for us to see how we compete against a good program. We’ve got a lot of respect for them, and they’ve got a lot of respect for us, as well.”
