GREENFIELD — Senior pitcher Hannah Holden took the term ‘settling down’ to new heights and Greenfield-Central’s bats found a cure for the left-on-base blues.
After an early 2-0 deficit, Holden took care of things in the circle and let her offense do the rest of the work in a five-inning, 14-4 route over Indianapolis Scecina Memorial at Greenfield-Central High School, Friday.
The win snapped a two-game losing streak and improved the Cougars record to 7-2. Scecina dropped to 2-2 on the season.
Of the first five Crusaders that came to the plate, Holden gave up a home run, a single and hit three batters.
With the bases loaded and no outs, she got a pop up and two strikeouts. Including the final outs of the first inning, Holden had a stretch of retiring nine out of 10 with eight coming by strikeout.
Holden went from struggling to dominating.
“I kind of got mad and thought to myself, ‘I definitely have to do better than this.’ I didn’t want to let my team down and I knew (coach Jason Stewart) wouldn’t be happy if I kept going on like that,” Holden said. “I think I came into the game a little cocky. After the first inning I realized I have to get serious and down to business.”
The rest of her four-inning outing, Holden gave up just two unearned runs. She finished with eight strikeouts and gave up four hits. Three of the four hits came from Scecina lead-off hitter Emily McDonald, who had two home runs and a double.
Sophomore Camille Burelison threw the fifth inning and retired the Crusaders in order.
“I like to call myself Hannah’s biggest supporter,” junior Ella Redman said of her team’s starting pitcher. “I have so much faith in that girl. I’m usually her DH and we share third base as a position, so we like to say that we’re one person now.
“I know how hard she can be on herself. After that first (home run), I told her she was completely fine. ‘It’s the first inning, you have the defense behind you. You have your offense behind you.’ I think she picked it up really well. She had one inning where she struck everyone out. She was killing it, her change-up was magnificent.”
Greenfield-Central picked up one run in the first and two more in the second for a slim 3-2 lead. It had left five runners on base in the first two innings.
The LOB issue was also a problem in the team’s first loss, a 13-3 decision against Noblesville on April 12. Prior to Friday’s win, G-C had also dropped a 10-0 contest at Fishers.
“The Noblesville (loss) was a matter of us leaving a ton of people on,” coach Stewart said. “That took us out of that. The Fishers game, we just got down early and were flat the rest of the way. We had some good swings tonight. Ella Redman smoked one to finish it and Ellie (Ewald) hit one well to center. We hit a lot of line drives and Hannah threw a great ballgame.”
The Cougars solved that LOB problem in their last couple of at-bats. With the bases loaded in the third inning, Burelison hit a three-run double.
In a seven-run fifth inning, Ewald hit a two-run home run deep over the center-field fence. Redman finished the game with a three-run, walk-off homer.
“I had not been doing well with my bat at all,” Redman said. “I hit that one to the fence (in my first at-bat) and it felt really good. I had two not-so-good at-bats, but that walk-off was a huge relief. It was just getting my personal confidence back.”
The Cougars’ hitters returned to their form that got them out to a 6-0 start.
Greenfield-Central had 13 hits and eight were for extra bases. Along with the two homers, Burelison had three doubles. Redman, Mallorie Fultz and Morgan Hornaday also had doubles. Seven different players had at least one hit.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been on a team that is this strong from the beginning of the lineup to the end,” Redman added.
The Cougars have scored double figures in runs in each of their seven victories and have scored 104 runs in nine contests.
Greenfield-Central returns to action Monday with its first Hoosier Heritage Conference game of the season. The Cougars play host to Delta at 5:30 p.m.
