Mt. Vernon head coach Brad King reacts as Josh James slides safely to third, after hitting a triple, during their game against Shelbyville.
Tom Russo | The Daily Reporter
FORTVILLE — There will be a few check marks alongside Mt. Vernon’s postgame chart of Tuesday’s Hoosier Heritage Conference baseball victory over Shelbyville.
The Marauders finished off the Golden Bears in the bottom of the fifth inning, winning by the 10-run mercy rule, 12-2, to improve to 5-1 overall and 3-0 in the HHC.
“One thing we do, we chart certain things. We want to score first. We want to score after the opposing team scores, which we answered that. So, that was good. We also chart how many two-out runs we get,” Mt. Vernon head coach Brad King said.
The Marauders did all those things and can add some exclamation marks to the third category after the homefield win.
Mt. Vernon scored a run in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead. It answered Shelbyville’s two-run third inning with a five-run at-bat, and the first 10 Marauder runs were all scored with two outs.
“That’s one thing on Saturday against Fishers (when we got shut out) we didn’t do a good job with guys in scoring position or with two outs,” King said. “In game 2 (of the Fishers doubleheader), we did a nice job and in this game we did a nice job with two outs.
“That’s the mindset we’ve got to have. We’ve got to limit the strikeouts and we’ve got to be aggressive and do things with two outs.”
It was more than enough runs for junior pitcher Cameron Sullivan.
A verbal commit to the University of Notre Dame, the right-hander was in charge against the Golden Bears’ bats.
Those bats rarely made contact.
Sullivan, in just his second varsity start, fanned 11 in four innings, giving up only a fourth-inning infield hit. He got in trouble in the third with a pair of walks and a throwing error. The first nine outs were all by strikeout. He hit one batter and walked two for the night.
“It got a little rough in the third inning, but other than that it felt like I was in command of the game. I had confidence in all my pitches,” Sullivan said. “I had confidence that (catcher) DJ (Scheumann) would block it if I threw a slider on a 3-2 count.”
“He had the one inning where he struggled, but overall, this is just his second varsity start,” King added. “He was pretty dominant and I thought all of his pitches were working.”
In the first, following an Eli Bridenthal single, and a balk, Gavin Johnston lined to left and Scheumann fouled out. Konnor Scheidt hit a sky-high pop up that dropped between the Shelbyville shortstop, second baseman and center fielder, for a single. It scored Bridenthal.
In the third, trailing 2-1, all five of the Marauders runs came with two outs. Johnston singled, Scheidt had a one-out single and, with two outs, Johnston scored on a wild pitch. Nick Heitman reached on a walk. Sullivan had an RBI-single to center field. Three Shelbyville errors aided the big inning.
The Marauders had four hits in their half of the fifth inning, three came after two outs and all knocked in a run. With one out, Russell Weaver singled and stole second base. With two outs, Sullivan walked. Nathan Criss hit another pop up that dropped for a hit, scoring Weaver. Josh James followed with the game’s only extra-base hit. He tripled to center field to score Will Jacobs, courtesy running for Sullivan. James scored on a Bridenthal single.
The final two runs in the fifth came without a hit. Shelbyville committed two more errors. The Golden Bears had five for the game.
The teams meet again tonight in Shelbyville for the second-game of the two-game series.
Shelbyville dropped to 0-3 in the HHC and 2-4 in all game.
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Mt. Vernon 12, Shelbyville 2
Shelbyville (2-4, 0-3);002;00; —;2;2;5
Mt. Vernon (5-1, 3-0);105;42; —;12;10;2
Aiden Smith, Luke Brinkman (4), Brock Kuhn (5) and Asher Balting; Cam Sullivan, Jack Peine (5) and DJ Scheumann. 3B: MV – James. WP: Sullivan (2-0). LP: Smith (1-1).
