LINDEN — North Montgomery baseball got it’s offense going early and often in their season opener on Tuesday against North Putnam. The first seven batters reached base and six of the seven recorded hits as the Charger bats were on fire from the get go as they scored six runs in the bottom of the first. North Montgomery ended up with a 12-1 win in five innings to get their season started off at 1-0.
Five different Chargers picked up two hits as the offense tallied 12 overall in the win.
“For our offense to come out and jump out on a good pitcher like Windmiller is for them says a lot about our guys approach at the plate tonight,” Charger coach Matt Voorhees said. “We felt confident that our guys were going to see the ball and hit the ball well. We showed great poise and maturity at the plate and that was great to see. We’re starting to grow up and become men up there and for us to put six up in the first inning was huge.”
Sophomore Cade Cole got his first varsity start on the mound for the Chargers and didn’t disappoint picking up the win. In four innings Cole allowed just two hits, and one run which was un-earned while striking out six Cougars. Cole also was batting second in the lineup for North Montgomery and tallied two hits.
“I was really impressed with him tonight,” Voorhees added. “He was our main pitcher on JV last year and started to get some innings at the varsity level but you don’t know how quite it’ll translate to when he gets the nod in the first game of the season as a sophomore.”
Jarrod Kirsch, Brookes Walters, Dylan Braun, and Noah Hopkins all along with Cole recorded two hits each for the Chargers. Corbin Meadows, Ross Dyson, and Braun also had two RBI’s each.
North Putnam tallied just two hits as Brogan Woodall and Jaylen Windmiller got the two base hits. Woodall drove in the lone Cougar run.
Windmiller began the game on the mound for the Cougars and in just three innings gave 10 hits and nine runs with seven being earned while striking out four. Kaden Helderman came in to pitch a single inning of relief and gave up three runs with zero being earned.
Collectively the Cougars made three errors in the game and overall coach Chris Geeser knows that his team was out-played in the loss but wasn’t upset with his team.
“I keep telling this team early on that we’re extremely young,” Geeser said. “We lost seven seniors last year and six of those guys were everyday starters for us. North Montgomery has always been a solid program and was a lot different than North Vermilion who we played last Saturday. I don’t think we played really poorly, they (North Montgomery) just were able to hit the ball really well. We could’ve bowed our heads but competed until the very end and that’s what I was proud of.”
A season ago the Chargers were bested by the Cougars in a 12-6 loss in their season opener. While Voorhees and his team don’t look back at what happened a season ago, it still felt nice to make amends for that defeat here in 2023.
“We talked about that a little bit and the fact that that game left a pit in our stomachs afterwards,” Voorhees said. “You have to a focus coming into a game to never overlook your opponent and last year I think we did that a little bit. Our guys agreed that they weren’t going to let that happen again.”
The 1-0 Chargers will be back in action on Thursday as they hit the road to take on Fountain Central (0-2). Charger ace Jarrod Kirsch will get the start that evening against the Mustangs.
