Prep Baseball Report

Bloomington South, Columbus East Earn Opening Round Victories





By Deryck Ramey

PBR Indiana



BLOOMINGTON - A sectional that saw opening night last year end the day with two shutout victories by Columbus East and Bloomington South changed locations with improved contests, but the Olympians and Panthers again boarded the bus victorious.  

Game one was a rematch of last year's opening night with Bloomington South facing off against the Golden Bears of Shelbyville. The 4-0 tilt a year ago brought together two of the state's premier pitchers in Ethan Larrison (Indiana State) and Gage Rogers (High Point). This night it was the bats who kept fans interested and teams on the board.  

Game two proved all that a cross town rivalry should be; a little heat, several lead changes, and a win on late inning heroics. In their previous two contests this seasons 4A #4 Columbus North recorded victories against the night's starter William Anderson. The tall righty toed the mound again, but it was teammate Cam Curry who struckout seven in five innings of relief sending the Olympians through to Friday's round. 

Bloomington South 10, Shelbyville 5

Henry Niswander helped Bloomington South overpower Shelbyville in the night's opening affair. The strong first baseman was one of seven Panther hitters with multi-hit games, but his fifth inning homerun moved the momentum towards the team from Bloomington one final time.  

Shelbyville sent standout shortstop Conner Hasecuster to the hill to start the game. Hasecuster, an Evansville commit, threw four strong innings striking out five and walking just one. After retiring the first four batters, Niswander, Chase Daab, Devin Buchlman, and JC Lukens chained together four straight singles and all came around to score giving Bloomington South a 4-2 lead heading into the bottom of the second. 

Freshman backstop Damon Lux then blasted a long homerun clearing the left center fence by 50 feet and energizing the Shelbyville squad.  

Bloomington South got the run back in the fifth and tacked on three in the fifth including a homerun by Niswander. That was all of the scoring they would need as they ran out a five run victory on 16 hits compared to just five from Shelbyville. 

Nick Wright picked up the W for Bloomington South and worked 5.2 innings striking out two.  

Columbus East 5, No. 4 Columbus North 4

Despite being just miles apart, Columbus East and Columbus North go about things differently. That includes how they set up their pitching throughout the season. The Olympians sent Anderson to the hill on all three occasions. Columbus North started used three different starters. Tonight it would be Colin Lollar, an Ohio State commit who's fastball is the strongest of the three sitting 88-90 and striking out 10. 

It was a bat that got the scoring started as Canaan Baum lifted Anderson's first pitch fastball deep over the left center fence. This appeared to rattle the confidence of the Olympians for a short time as Columbus North put three more runners on base and another across the plate before closing out the first inning.  

That confidence returned for Anderson as he singled and scored on a Kyle Weiss double cutting the Bulldog lead in half.  

For the second straight game pitchers combined for a total of two free passes, this time striking out 18. Anderson was replaced by Curry in the third and saw his offense light up two more runs and take their first lead of the game as Anderson and Weiss crossed the plate. 

Columbus North battle back one last time taking the lead in the fifth. Devin Mann reached on a single, stole second and scored on a double by Cody Burton. Burton then came around to plate a run on Lollar's second RBI of the evening.  

Lollar strode to the mound in the top of the seventh looking for a complete game victory. Columbus East had other plans. A strike out to Weiss and walk to Brock Greiwe put the tying run on with just two outs left in the game. A single by Joey Back and a misplayed ball on a single by Jon Crawford knotted the score at four. Crawford came around to score on a wild pitch pushing the Olympians ahead for what would be the final tally.  

The Columbus East Olympians move on and will play Bloomington South Friday night. 

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