Crawfordsville baseball completed a two-game Sagamore Conference sweep over Western Boone with a 10-0, five-inning win on Wednesday night.
The Athenians sent 12 hitters to the plate in the first inning — scoring eight runs, while the trio of Caleb Coons, Henry Taylor, and Austin Motz allowed just one hit in five innings of shutout baseball.
“Tonight there’s no question about it, they were hungry,” Crawfordsville coach Brett Motz said. “I could tell in batting practice today that they were 100% ready to play and that’s always a great feeling as a coach when you’re watching your guys give it their all in a batting practice session and they’re locked in at the plate, driving baseballs and enjoying it.”
Lead-off man Andrew Martin led the Athenians with three hits, two RBI and a pair of runs scored. The senior had two hits in the opening at-bat, including a two-RBI triple. Motz, who follows Martin in the batting order, had three hits and drove in four runs.
“They continue to do a good job of putting pressure on teams,” coach Motz said. “They’re aggressive early in counts because they know they want to put the ball in play because they have decent speed. The more times they get one base, the more times the meat of the order can hopefully drive them in. There’s no question of their leadership up front and Andrew is doing a great job of setting the tone early and having an aggressive mentality.”
Coons took the ball for the Athenians and tossed three perfect innings, striking out eight WeBo hitters. Taylor and Motz each pitched a scoreless inning.
The win moves Crawfordsville to 12-5 overall and 7-2 in Sagamore Conference play. With five league games left, Motz hopes his team continues to peak over the final two and a half weeks of the season.
“It’s one step at a time,” he said. “There’s no question that our goal is put ourselves in position to play for a conference championship at the end of the conference season. You have to come out and approach each game like our first sectional game and to try and get these guys to understand how important each play, each at-bat is.”
Crawfordsville travels to North Putnam on Friday.
