PENDLETON — Before the baseball season opened this past April, Mt. Vernon senior Hunter Dobbins set a few individual goals in addition to some team aspirations.
These past few weeks, he’s reached or exceeded those individual objectives and was rewarded with a couple more.
Now, he’s locked in on his team, alone, and it showed during Saturday’s Class 4A Sectional 9 semifinal at Pendleton Heights High School’s Bill Stoudt Field.
Finishing 3-for-3 with three RBI singles, Dobbins, the 2021 IHSBCA District Player of the Year, led the Marauders’ 13-hit attack as Mt. Vernon run ruled Muncie Central 19-0 to advance into Monday’s championship game.
“Before the year started, I told everybody I wanted to bat .500 and hit eight home runs. We beat the home runs and I hope we don’t go below .500,” Dobbins said. “We made our goal and we beat it by a lot so that’s awesome.”
Dobbins is hitting .577 on the season after Monday, and he’s crushed 10 home runs to go with 12 doubles, a triple and a team-leading 39 RBI.
His plate discipline has resulted in 16 multi-hit games and just 11 games without a run driven in through 30 contests.
His offensive production and fielding at catcher and third base earned him District Player of the Year honors and an IHSBCA North-South All-Star nod as a representative on the South team during the three-day series event in Evansville on June 25-27.
“Hunter deserves it. He works really hard at his craft, and I’ve said all along, he’s a hitter like no other that I’ve seen, but he works at it everyday,” Mt. Vernon head coach Brad King said.
“Those are great honors for him. Being District Player of the Year gets him on the Mr. Baseball ballot, which is awesome, and being on the South All-Star team makes him the fourth all time. It’s a big deal, and hopefully, he can get a sectional championship to go with that and we keep going.”
The Marauders inched closer to the program’s eighth sectional title and first since 2011 against Muncie Central, taking a 5-0 lead after the first inning and leading 19-0 after three frames behind a 13-run top of the third.
Joel Walton (3-for-3), Nate Weaver (3-for-3), AJ Swingle (1-for-2) and Austin Hear (0-for-2) each drove in two runs apiece during the game.
Walton and Swingle had one double each, while the Marauders stole four bases and drew six walks.
“We’ve been talking since we started preparing for sectional after our last game, that you can’t overlook anyone. You can look at records and all this other stuff, but on any given day in baseball, something can happen,” King said.
“I thought our guys have had good focus. They’re probably sick of me saying don’t overlook anybody, don’t take anybody for granted and stay focused on little things, but I thought we were focused today.”
Dobbins’ two-run single in the top of the first plated the game’s first two runs and his single in the third increased the margin 9-0.
“We just have to keep hitting the ball like we did today,” Dobbins said. “We put up a lot of hits today, and if we keep making plays and throwing strikes, then we’re going to be just fine.”
Payton Bovard, Gehrig Slunaker, Bryce Miller, Caleb Bell, Jackson Morales, Carson Augustinovicz (1-for-2) and Eli Bridenthal (1-for-3) all finished with one RBI.
The victory marked Mt. Vernon’s fifth this season by shutout and extended the team’s winning streak to eight straight after losing to rival Greenfield-Central, 8-0, on May 11.
“We’re not going to stop. We’re going to keep hitting, keep pitching. We’re going to do good,” Dobbins said.
The Marauders’ took the first step with another Hoosier Heritage Conference foe standing in their way of a potential eighth sectional title in program history.
Mt. Vernon is currently setting the program’s record for wins in a single season at 23-6 and became the first team in school history to win the HHC title outright after sharing the championship in 2009.
