No-fly zone (04/11/06)

FORT RECOVERY — Jets may land in Fort Recovery. But they better not plan on taking off again.

The Indian baseball team continued its dominance over teams with the airplane moniker, clobbering the Franklin Monroe Jets 12-2 in five innings Monday.

The Tribe has outscored teams 47-7 over the last three games, the previous two victories coming in double-header action at home Saturday against the Fairlawn Jets.

Fort Recovery showed what the game would be like in its first three batters. After Bobby Rammel led off with a single to left-center field, Tony Diller and Clint Tobe followed with back-to-back bunt singles.

“That’s a tough way to start,” said Franklin Monroe coach Tal Mong. “They did a good job executing their game plan and bunting, moving runners over. They were hitting the ball when it came down to it too. They’re a good ball club.”

The Indians (6-3) got on top when Rammel scored on a one-out sacrifice fly to right field by designated hitter Steve Trobridge. Chris Galdeen brought Diller home with a single to left field for a 2-0 Tribe lead after the opening inning.

“We’ve been working on the small ball things,” said Fort Recovery coach Aaron Vaughn, whose team has won four in a row heading into tonight’s Midwest Athletic Conference battle against Coldwater. “We really have been focusing on that. If you get those bunts down, you never know what is going to happen ... Doing the little things right ... in all our wins has really helped us. That was huge to start the game and get ahead.”

The lead exploded in the third inning when Tobe led off with a double and the first five Indian batters reached base. Kevin Schoenherr followed with an RBI double, and then scored on an RBI single by Trobridge. Galdeen added a single, and Toby Metzger walked to load the bases.

After Franklin Monroe finally recorded the first out of the inning, Curt Heitkamp delivered a two-run single scoring Trobridge and Galdeen. Later in the inning Tobe came up again, this time delivering an RBI single to score Heitkamp before Diller was tagged out at home plate to finally end the six-run frame.

Fort Recovery added three more runs in the fourth inning for an 11-0 lead before the Jets got on the board in the top of the fifth. The home team still managed to end the game early as David Schmitt walked and stole second base, and Chris Galdeen drove him in with a two-out, RBI single to right-center.

“I think we’re a better team (than we showed tonight),” said Mong. “You hate to say that as a coach ... We didn’t execute and they did. We got a few bad breaks here and there, but we didn’t execute and they did and they did a good job with it.

“They just hit the ball. We had one of our best pitchers going tonight. He was up a little bit, but they were getting down and hitting those low pitches, hitting his curve ball.”

Galdeen, the Indians’ senior second baseman, has been on a tear of late. He followed up his 4-for-5, five RBI, four run effort Saturday by going 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs against Franklin Monroe.

“It’s that senior leadership that needs to come out of him and it has,” said Vaughn. “He’s a pretty quiet guy, but he needs to show it and he is doing that. He did that all Saturday and he did it today.”

Tobe also finished with three hits, and Schoenherr scored twice. Trobridge and Heitkamp each drove in a pair of runs.

The big offense supported a solid effort on the mound from senior Brad Fortkamp (2-1). After walking the first batter of the game, he went on to toss four scoreless innings. He allowed just four more base runners — on three hits and a walk — and struck out two.

Dan Heitkamp tossed one inning of relief.

“After the first one he calmed down and we got a couple of big plays for him,” said Vaughn. “From there out we got runs, and I think he settled in and was comfortable.”

Alex Pressley took the defeat for the Jets, giving up eight runs on 11 hits. He walked two and struck out two in three innings.

Chris Hall and Zach Riffel each had a single and an RBI.[[In-content Ad]]