Eagles silence Patriots

MUNCIE — The Eagles and Patriots played sloppy out of the gate.

Over the first four innings, five runs scored and none of them were earned.

A pep talk got the Eagles out of their funk, allowing them to take over the game.

Jay County High School’s baseball team had a 3-0 lead but things began to unravel in the fourth inning after Delta coach Devin Wilburn laid into his team, inspiring the Eagles to clean up their act and get the bat on the ball as they came back to hand the Patriots an 8-4 loss Monday.

Jay County (11-11) was looking good early. Despite only one hit through the first four innings — a single to left field by Drew Schemenaur — it developed a 3-0 lead.

Schemenaur earned the only hits for JCHS in the contest, slashing singles in the first and seventh innings. He also had one of two RBIs, the other coming from Parker Nichols.

“We just haven’t been hitting the ball all of late in the last few games,” JCHS coach Todd Farr said. “If you’re not hitting the ball, you’re not going to win very many ball games.”

The Eagles (13-8) committed five errors over the first half of the game to allow the Patriots to score. Kaeb Stebbins threw a leadoff walk to Jackson Edwards before Schemenaur’s hit put two runners on base.

Jay County right fielder Leighton Brown fields a ball during the fifth inning of the Patriots’ 8-4 loss at Delta Monday. The single drove in the tying run for the Eagles. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Back-to-back errors by Zane Cline at second base and Gavin Case in right field allowed the runs to score.

The third run crossed as the result of a trio of errors in the fourth inning. Ryne Goldsworthy initially reached base by an error on Everrett Linn at shortstop. Two batters later, Kade Sommers hit a ground ball to shortstop that could have been a double play, but Cline sailed the ball wide of Jacob Roach at first base, awarding Sommers second.

Wyatt Foster, a pinch runner for Sommers, reached home on the next at bat as Delta third baseman Campbell Light threw the ball away.

At that point, Wilburn had enough and pulled his team into a huddle outside the dugout to talk about the poor start.

“One thing that we always talk about is not ‘riding the roller coaster’ and that’s something our team typically does,” Wilburn said. “We have a really laid back group … sometimes it’s good and they don’t let the moment get too big for them but sometimes they don’t bring it enough like they should.

“I just talked to them like, ‘Hey, quit riding the roller coaster. We can’t only get up for the big games and the big moments, these ones matter too and count just as much.’

“I was frustrated with that because we talked about that before the game. … They responded well and got a couple of big swings, some guys drove in some runs and took the pressure off a little bit.”

Hits didn’t immediately come in the fourth inning, but the message was received. After Cody Rowles recorded two outs and allowed two runners to reach base on a walk and a hit-by-pitch, Light connected with a ball that went to deep left field. Aiden Phillips failed to get under the ball and missed when he tried to jump and catch it, allowing both runners to score.

Delta finally got its first hit of the game in the fifth inning as Cline led off with a single up the middle. Later, Kaeb Stebbins smacked a single through the right side of the infield to plate Cline and tie the game.

The Patriots moved to their bullpen with A.J. Myers, who struck out the first batter he faced. He couldn’t hold the fort down for long as Lane Norton delivered an RBI single to left field that gave Delta its first lead.

Delta piled on four more runs in the sixth inning on a triple by Cline, a single by Ritchie, and errors by Ryne Goldsworthy and Schemenaur. 

The Patriots may get an opportunity to try to exact some revenge on the Eagles, as both teams compete in the IHSAA Class 3A Sectional 24 hosted by Yorktown. They start on opposite sides of the bracket in the semifinals before a potential matchup in the championship game.

Farr wants his team to just move forward from the recent losses and get back to playing winning baseball during this final week of the regular season.

“We’ve just got to get to work and come back at it,” Farr said. “There’s a possibility that we’ll see these guys down the road, so we’re going to get after it. We aren’t going to hang our heads or anything like that … we can’t sit and stew on it too long.”