CHARLOTTESVILLE — It took all of one inning for Eastern Hancock to start erasing the memory of the last time they saw rival Knightstown.
That game, a 2018 sectional semifinal, saw the Royals get blanked and eliminated, 2-0. The Panthers went on to win both a sectional and regional before falling in the semistate.
With most of their team back, Eastern Hancock hadn’t forgotten how last year ended. They were supposed to open 2019 weeks ago, but weather delayed that, meaning a rivalry showdown Tuesday was the official start to a promising new campaign for the Royals.
The hosts jumped on their rivals early, taking a quick 4-0 lead, and held on from there to top Class 2A No. 9 Knightstown, 4-2.
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“That team I believe is ninth in the state, so that’s a good win for us,” Eastern Hancock coach Terry Stephens said. “That’s a very solid team. We wanted to kind of show ‘em that we weren’t the team that lost to ‘em in sectionals. We’ve got a lot of old faces, but we’re definitely a different team than what we were last year.”
Much of the lineups were similar to last year’s Royals finale. Six starters Tuesday from each team played in last year’s sectional semifinal game. The starting pitchers were the same, with Knightstown starter Sidney Vise facing off with Eastern Hancock starter Elise Bittinger again.
Bittinger lasted 3⅓ innings Tuesday, striking out three, walking two and hitting a batter, allowing two runs on four hits. Vise threw a complete game, allowing nine hits and four runs while striking out two and walking four.
Sophomore Maddie Turner took over on the mound in the fourth inning for the Royals and totally shut down the Panthers, retiring the first eight batters she faced and striking out five while walking one.
She gave up zero hits to the Panthers.
“I was ready. I was just ready to go,” Turner said. “As a pitcher you have to have a mindset of you’re confident and you know you can do it. It’s a relief because it’s your first game, and I haven’t really pitched as much with this team. It felt really good, especially because they’re our biggest rival. We showed them what we can do.”
“I’ve been telling her basically for a year now that with your speed, you should be able to come in and do exactly what she’s done, which is shut that door,” Stephens said. “Seeing what she did the offseason with her travel ball team, she had several perfect games, no-hitters, I knew that we were going to be in good shape. And with that leadership that she’s got to look up to with Jessi Potts and Elise Bittinger, I think our pitching staff is going to be just fine.”
The Royals surpassed their hit total from the 2018 sectional semifinal in the first inning Tuesday, and they did it all with two outs. Kaylee Stewart doubled, Paige Wickard singled her in, Taylor Koch walked, Bailey Stephens singled in a run, and Megan Bever singled in a run (and another scored on a throwing error), giving Eastern Hancock a 4-0 lead just one inning into the season.
The Panthers cut the lead in half in the next inning, with a leadoff walk, a single, and then two two-out singles pushing across a pair of runners.
“It was great honestly, just coming out here, getting the win,” Bever said. “No, we weren’t fully clean, but it felt good to just do what I love and come back out here and just play. We’re ranked below Knightstown. We come into this like, we’re going to win. We came out and did it, and we were determined to do it.”
It was a relief for the Royals to finally start their season after the originally-scheduled opener against Randolph Southern, scheduled for several weeks ago, was rained out.
“It seems like we’ve been practicing for a year, and I was like, we’ve got to play a game. We’ve got to play a game just to see what we’ve got, if anything,” Stephens said. “We’ve got so many freshmen in the lineup, and I want to see, are they going to be able to handle the pressure? Are they going to be able to perform? I think they did pretty good.”
The Royals (1-0) have a busy week ahead, hosting Blue River Valley tonight, Warren Central on Thursday and Tri on Friday.
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Eastern Hancock 4, No. 9 Knightstown 2
K (1-2);020;000;0;—;2;4;1
EH (1-0);400;000;X;—;4;9;1
WP: Elise Bittinger. LP: Sidney Vise.
2B: Kaylee Stewart, Caroline Stapleton, Taylor Koch (EH). RBI: Paige Wickard, Bailey Stephens, Megan Bever (EH); Cara Mullen, Trinidie Newby (K).
Notable: Maddie Turner 3⅔ IP, 5 K, 1 BB, 0 H, 0 ER; Bever 3-for-3, RBI, SB
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