NEW MARKET -— It took a little longer than both teams, coaches, and Montgomery County baseball fans probably thought, but North Montgomery was able to take down county rival Southmont 8-4 on Saturday morning. The two teams resumed play in the top of the fourth after rain caused the game to be delayed after 3.1 innings on Friday. When play resumed in the top of the fourth, The Chargers led 8-3 and it was fairly smooth sailing to the finish line.
Due to the game being called on Friday Cade Cole who started that night was unavailable (pitch count) so the Chargers turned to Roman Utterback. Utterback pitched the final four innings to give the Chargers the win.
Flashing back to Friday’s action the Mounties were able to jump on Cole in the first inning for three runs. North evened things up at 3-3 with a three-run second and right as the rain came down the hardest on Friday scored five more runs before the game was put on hold.
The Mounties got their final run in the fourth when a North Montgomery error was able to score Gunnar Shirk. Also because of the game getting moved to Saturday, the Chargers were without the services of starting catcher Dylan Braun and right fielder Gage Galloway as both seniors had graduation open houses.
“A suspended game is always difficult,” Charger coach Matt Voorhees said. “Not having our two senior leaders was a little hard to overcome. At the plate at least today (Saturday) I didn’t feel like we performed as well as we should have and you have to give Cale Chadd a lot of credit for that. For us though Roman had a fantastic outing with some odd circumstances that we were dealt with. At the end of the day we picked up another Sagamore Conference win and that’s hard to with this talented conference.”
North Montgomery ends the year with a 9-5 mark in SAC play which puts them finishing third behind out-right SAC champion Tri-West (13-1) and Crawfordsville (10-4).
For the Mounties it was a tail of two days and plenty of positive moments to build off of against their county rival. First-year head coach Bill Woods noted those positives after the game.
“The whole game was a positive for us,” he said. “Giving up five runs in that downpour was basically what decided the game. We did a good job of hitting the ball against Utterback once we figured him out late. Combine that with the three runs we scored in the first inning on Friday off a good pitcher in Cole and the way Cale came back today and we’re happy overall with how we played.”
The Mounties actually were able to out-hit their county rival 9-8. Senior Adam Cox, who is still working his way back from a hamstring injury, had an impressive 3-4 day at the plate. Mason Hall added a pair of hits while Trip Ward, Caden Jones, Chayce Howell and Shirk all had one each. Jarrod Kirsch and Utterback paced the Charger offense with two hits each. Ross Dyson, Brookes Walters, Cole and Braun all had one hit each.
North with the win improve to 15-12 and will have one final game left in the season before they shift their focus to post-season play. Monday they’ll welcome Greencastle to close out the regular season.
“It’ll be a little different for us and we’ll have to sit down and see how we want to approach that game from a pitching standpoint,” Voorhees said. “It’s going to be our youth night and I’m hoping our team can represent those kids well. We’ll have to be better at the plate and execute to get some runs in. I do also want to tip my cap to coach Woods and South. We wish them all the best in the post-season.”
The Mounties will have a few days to rest and prepare for their sectional opener on Wednesday against the same Tiger Cubs that play the Chargers on Monday. The Class 2A Sectional 44 Tournament will be hosted by Parke Heritage and the Mounties and Tiger Cubs will get underway on Wednesday approximately at 7:30.
“We feel like we didn’t play our best the first time we played them,” Woods said. “We’re hitting the ball better than we were then and we’ll have all of our arms ready to go.”
