History literally repeated itself in a 10-0 Crawfordsville baseball win over Southmont Wednesday at John Froedge Field
A single play, disputed by the opposing teams, leads to a scoring issue on a historical note.
Before that however, is the undisputed dynamic pitching performance by Athenians sophomore Jude Coursey.
Coursey faced one hitter over the minimum, struck out 10 and walked none to run his record to 2-0 on the season
He got timely hitting from his mates, and they put 10 on the board to run Crawfordsville’s record to 12-4 on the season and 5-2 in the Sagamore Conference, while South falls to 4-10 overall and 0-7 in the league.
The dispute, exactly the same as Tuesday in the Athenians 6-0 win, stems from one play, and exactly the same as Tuesday, on the same type of play.
South’s lead-off hitter, Conner McKinney, leading off the first for the Mounties, hit a ground ball to short.
Tuesday it was a tough chance to handle the ball. Wednesday it was the throw to first. In both cases, McKinney was safe.
And in both games, he was the only South hitter to reach base the entire game.
In both cases, Crawfordsville coaches scored the play as an error, which gives Jude Coursey a Wednesday no-hitter, exactly as they gave one to Kale Wemer Tuesday.
In both cases, Southmont coaches called it a base hit, which would nullify the no-hitter.
“The bottom line is that we have to score to win,” South coach Bill Woods said. “We have to get guys on base, and get them in. We have to throw more strikes, and we have to eliminate the mistakes in the field, but we scored that a hit.”
The last note on the mini controversy is that both sides heard the base umpire tell the South coach that he would have called McKinney safe, but the dropped throw just clouds things all up.
What is clear is that the Athenians won the game 10-0, and stay within a game of first in the conference.
“Jude (Coursey) set the tone for us tonight,” Cville coach Brett Motz said. “Coach (Rhett) Welliever had him so set up. He executed his locations so well. He had his fastball and curve located extremely well. He has a good fastball and a little better breaking ball, but he had such good command tonight. He had so much confidence that he could throw either pitch on any count.”
Coursey threw only 62 pitches in six innings of work. He threw only 15 pitches for balls, and got to a ball-3 count on one hitter only.
The Athenians offense set their own tone early, with three runs in the first and two more in the second.
Several hits found the only open spot in the outfield, and a couple balls got lost in the sun.
“Our hitting tonight was a point of emphasis,” Motz said. “We knew we needed better execution, and we did that tonight. We executed a hit and run, we got a runner in from third, and we scored on a squeeze play. Those are all plays we will need to be able to do in games down the road.”
Bryce Dowell reached base four times and scored three. Wyatt Motz went 3-for-4 to raise his .538 average even higher. The sophomore scored twice. Courtesy runner Javier Resto scored twice running for June Coursey. Cole Coursey had three RBI.
“It was an uplifting win,” Motz said. “We have come back from our two losses to Tri-West and gotten back on track. We got good pitching in our three conference wins since then (Lebanon and two against South) and timely hitting. We continue to work towards being the best we can be by the end of the season.”
The Mounties are idle until they travel to Danville next Monday.
“We are going to keep working,” Woods said. “We have goals and lots to look forward to. We strive to get better by the end of the season, and with a couple injured guys possibly back late, we can get there.”
The Athenians have a home game Friday against Benton Central and travel to McCutcheon Saturday.
