New Palestine’s Blaine Nunnally delivers a pitch in Tuesday’s Hoosier Heritage Conference game against Yorktown.
Mike Brown | For The Daily Reporter
By Brady Extin | Daily Reporter
NEW PALESTINE — New Palestine’s first Hoosier Heritage Conference loss of the season did more than just change the second number on their record.
For head coach Shawn Lyons, the 9-6 loss at home to Yorktown (5-2, 4-1), showed the Dragons (3-2, 2-1) what they need to find as the season progresses — the ability to play New Palestine baseball.
“I’m not really looking at the conference. We’re just trying to get inexperienced kids experience, and get the experienced kids to perform. So we’re looking at the big picture. The conference is always something to look forward to, but we’ve got bigger concerns right now,” Lyons said. “We need to start playing with more confidence, and just play New Palestine baseball, which we did not do tonight.”
To get back to the New Palestine style of baseball, the Dragons are in search of consistency, beginning at the plate.
To open the young season, New Palestine has two double-digit offensive outputs, but also one shutout. On Tuesday, that inconsistency showed through seven innings.
The Dragons were held scoreless through the first five innings before putting together three-run frames in both the sixth and seventh innings.
“When we’ve had big outings this season, it’s been a combination of us getting some hits but also the opposing team walking some guys and making some errors. We challenge our kids that ‘hey, we have to score runs even when the other teams aren’t walking us and are making the routine plays.’ Tonight, Yorktown did that. They threw strikes and made plays,” Lyons said. “We’re looking for consistency, but we’re still trying to figure that out.”
When the offense did come alive, it was too late. A five-run sixth inning fueled the Tigers to a 9-0 lead.
After five innings of work, New Palestine starting pitcher, Blaine Nunnally, turned the ball over to the bullpen to begin the sixth. Against Nolan Cox, the first four Yorktown batters reached base on only one hit.
Chase Ankney replaced Cox with the bases loaded and got the first batter to strikeout, and then what appeared to be the second out of the inning. On a ground ball back to him on the mound, he threw home for the force at the plate, but the umpire ruled that catcher Wyatt Matheis took his foot off the plate before catching the ball.
The Tigers’ next batter, Jayce Key, ripped a bases-clearing double down the left field line to break the game open 9-0.
“That call at the plate hurt. That’s three or four runs that they scored that they maybe shouldn’t have, but what’re you going to do,” Lyons said. “We’ve got to do a better job of throwing strikes and not giving them what we call free 90s, walks and hit-by-pitches. So a lot of that was our fault, but it would’ve been nice to get that call at the plate. It is what it is, but it’s disappointing.”
And while breaks like that went Yorktown’s way, the Dragons couldn’t cash-in on early game opportunities.
The Dragons got the leadoff batter on base to begin the second, third and fifth innings before hard-hit double plays ended things before they could get started.
In the first, Nunnally was stranded on second after a two-out double, and in the second, the same thing happened after a two-out Cox double. Jacob Morris was left at second base in the fourth, and Cox was left in scoring position again in the fifth.
“We hit some balls hard right at them, and that’s just baseball. You barrel a ball up, and it just goes right to them, and they get a double play. That’s the frustrating thing about baseball,” Lyons said. “But when you aren’t getting those breaks, you just have to hang with it. It’s a seven-inning game. We knew we were going to score, but we just allowed them to break it open first.”
The Tigers scored two runs in the first and two more in the third. Nunnally threw five innings, allowing eight hits and one walk while striking out five.
“Blaine didn’t have his best stuff, but he kept us in the game,” Lyons said, “A call here or a play there, and we’re right back in the ball game, but it just didn’t happen.”
Yorktown’s Cole Temple got the win, pitching five-plus innings, allowing three runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out seven.
The Dragons are back in action today for game 2 of the HHC series against Yorktown. They travel to Yorktown with first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m.
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Yorktown 9, New Palestine 6
Yorktown (5-2, 4-1);202;005;0; — ;9;10;0
New Palestine (3-2, 2-1);000;003;3; — ;6;9;2
Cole Temple, Jacob Grim (6) and Jayce Key; Blaine Nunnally, Nolan Cox (6), Chase Ankney (6) and Wyatt Matheis. Ben Hirschy (7) and Jackson Kamp. 2B: Y – Key. NP – Nunnally, Cox, Hirschy. 3B: NP – Kamp. WP: Cole Temple (2-0). LP: Blaine Nunnally (0-1).
