Have a day, Garrett Harker.
The Lebanon senior and Cincinnati commit pitched a 3-hit shutout and drove in three runs as Class 3A No. 1 Lebanon beat Crawfordsville 8-0 in a Sagamore Conference tilt on Saturday.
“There’s no question that he’s (Harker) a competitive kid, that plays multiple sports and he has worked really hard to be better now than he was two years ago and I could definitely see a difference,” Crawfordsville coach Brett Motz said. “He wasn’t just throwing hard, he was hitting his spots and throwing a couple of different pitches for strikes and it’s tough to beat guys like that.”
Harker struck out 11 hitters, allowed three hits, and walked just one.
Andrew Martin and Bryce Dowell had early hits for the Athenians, before Caleb Coons had a hit and Zack Fichter walked in the seventh to put two on for the Athenians with just one out, but they were unable to score.
“When you face a guy like that, you have to take advatange of every opportunity and get swings in. The guy is going to come at you. I don’t know what his strike to ball ratio was, but it was unbelievable. He’s a kid that we’ve got to put the ball in play,” Motz said.
“We had 11 strikeouts, but I thought our guys were up there competing. There’s an awe factor where the guys are in awe with how quick the ball gets to them with a pitcher like that, but we were definitely competing and getting our hacks in and I was happy with that.”
Michael Richwine got Lebanon on the board with a RBI hit scoring Brayton Bowen in the second inning. Harker hit a two-run home run in the third and then drove in another run with a double in the fifth. The Tigers tacked on three more in the seventh.
“I was definitely hoping for a low scoring affair, and just a few plays that could have been made and it could have been a low scoring game,” Motz added. “We definitely have a lot to learn from in this game, and hopefully if we face them again in the future.”
Crawfordsville travels to Southmont on Tuesday, while Lebanon is at Tri-West.
