Frankfort baseball has played spoiler all season long to teams in the Sagamore Conference and on Monday against Crawfordsville they did it again. Starting pitcher Jose Lopez had the Athenian offense just off the entire night and led the Hot Dogs to a 5-1 win over the Athenians.
Cville didn’t record their first hit until the third inning and could build much momentum until the damage had already been done. Crawfordsville left the bases loaded in the fifth and got their lone run in the seventh when Wyatt Motz singled home Jude Coursey who led off the inning with a double.
“We hit just too many weak balls tonight and couldn’t quite get our timing down until it was too late,” Crawfordsville coach Brett Motz said. “Give a lot of credit to Lopez. He’s a good pitcher and we didn’t make an adjustment early enough against him. They had some timely hits off us and got some insurance runs in the seventh.”
It was also senior night for the Athenians who honored their six senior plus two student-managers. Cale Coursey, Dylan Farley, AJ Hall, Javier Resto, Kaiden Underwood, and Isaac Rogers along with managers Christen Saunders and Austin were celebrated and thanked for their dedication to the Athenian program.
“This senior class has been a blessing to coach,” Motz said of the eight that were honored. “There’s no question that they’re going to be successful with whatever they do in life. Hopefully this sport has taught them some life lessons that they can carry on with them. There’s no doubt they’ve helped us out tremendously in the years that they’ve been here.”
Lopez after giving up the one run in the seventh win one out was pulled for Carlos Lopez who recorded the final two out. In six and a third innings Lopez gave up just five hits and a that one earned run. He only struck out one CHS hitter and walked six. Cville was just unable to capitalize when they put the ball in play.
Three of Crawfordsville’s (18-8, 8-4 SAC) five hits came off the bat of Motz who ended his night 3-4. Javier Resto and J. Coursey had the two other Athenian hits. With the loss Crawfordsville’s hopes to get a least a share of the SAC title go out the window. Tri-West bested North Montgomery to improve to 10-1 in SAC play and with their win over the Chargers and the CHS loss were able to claim their first ever out-right conference title.
Kale Wemer took the loss on the mound for CHS. In five innings the junior hurler allowed five hits, but just a single earned run. He struck out six and walked four. Bryce Dowell pitched the final two innings in relief and allowed four hits and three earned. He struck out one and walked two.
Frankfort with the win improves to 13-10 (7-5 SAC) as they now own wins over the top three teams in the conference in Tri-West, North Montgomery and now Crawfordsville.
The two teams will meet again on Tuesday at Frankfort with first pitch scheduled for 6 pm.
