LINDEN -— North Montgomery’s baseball team warmed up for their big game tonight with a 9-6, come-from-behind win over Clinton Prairie.
The Chargers, who move to 12-6 with the win, used the long ball offensively and solid pitching from deeper in the rotation to pick up the victory.
Five of North’s 12 hits were for extra bases.
Things started with Brookes Walters, as the junior used the outbound wind effectively for a first-inning home run, his third long ball of the season.
He doubled in the third and doubled again in the fifth. He drove in three, scored three times, reached base four times and finished with 16 total bases. He continues his season-long hitting streak, now sitting at 18 games.
Dylan Braun got the other two extra-base hits with doubles in his last two at-bats. The junior drove in two, scored once and had a big game behind the plate, throwing out three Clinton Prairie runners.
“Dylan was Mr. Defense for us tonight,” Chargers coach Matt Voorhees said. “He threw the three guys out, and just did a lot of the good little things. He’s a passionate player, and has been improving through the season as he has been watching a lot of good catchers in the conference and the area perform their roles. He is also becoming more of a leader for us. He is a good kid who wants to succeed and wants his team to succeed. Those two monster doubles are really good too.”
Braun called pitches for Brayden Martin, who started on the mound for North, and then for Max Verduin, who pitched in relief and got the win to even his season record at 2-2.
Martin, coming off injury, was on a pitch count and threw four innings. The senior allowed five hits and three CP runs. He walked only one batter and struck out five.
Verduin came in for the last three innings, and picked up the win because the Chargers scored the go-ahead runs with him on the mound. He allowed three runs on four hits, walked two and struck out three.
The two Chargers’ hurlers had at least one strikeout in each of the seven CP at-bats.
“It was great to get more of our pitchers some quality innings,” Voorhees said. “First, I can’t thank Clinton Prairie enough for coming over to play. They have a monster schedule coming up, but they had an opening like we did. It was a beautiful night to play baseball, and like I always say, any game is better than any practice. You get better by playing, and practice cannot simulate a game. We also got to see a couple different pitchers, and work on that bat-timing.”
The Chargers got a run in the first on the Walters long ball, and added a run in the third. Martin singled and courtesy runner Gage Galloway scored on Walters first double.
The Gophers, who also used the long ball (five of their nine total hits were for extra bases), took the lead in the top of the fourth with three runs, highlighted by a Kaden Mullendore home run, his first of the season.
North tied the game in the bottom of the third when Jakob Kirsch singled and eventually scored on a passed ball. He finished with three hits.
A CP home run in the fifth by Klayton Perkins gave the visitors the lead back, but with the four in the bottom half of the inning by North gave them the lead they kept. The Chargers scored two more in the sixth, the Gophers two in the seventh, and that was that.
“We are a still a young squad,” CP coach Matt Scott said. “We need the games, and with this added game, we have six this week and six more next week. I was really pleased with how we competed at the plate. We lost to Central Catholic 1-0 on Saturday and left some chances at the plate. Tonight we created some chances for ourselves. We like to play good teams with good pitching like North Montgomery has and if it wasn’t for some base running mistakes, we were right in it. Ty (Kirkpatrick) pitched well for us, we got three hits from Mullendore and we hit two home runs, which gives us three for the season.”
Kirkpatrick went five innings on the mound for the Gophers, who fall to 2-12 on the season. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out one. Brevon Posey pitched the last inning.
The win for the Chargers is the warmup for tonight’s big county and Sagamore Conference game with Crawfordsville.
North is two games behind the Athenians in the loss column, so winning twice would even things in the conference. It would also give them bragging rights in the county, and there is always a possible sectional game ahead.
“Crawfordsville is one of the premier programs in the state of Indiana,” Voorhees noted. “We know we have that chance to play, and hopefully beat them. It would give us that chance in the conference, give us the county. We are looking forward to playing them twice this week.”
The first of the two games this week against the Athenians is scheduled for a 7 pm first pitch tonight at North. The second game is Wednesday at CHS.
