NEW MARKET — North Montgomery baseball concluded a five-game week on Saturday as the Chargers made the short trip to the southern part of Montgomery County for a Sagamore Conference and county showdown with Southmont. After using a seven-run seventh to defeat Harrison 9-4 on Friday, the Chargers were able to cruise against their county rivals and win 12-1.
North Montgomery (6-3, 2-3 SAC) got on the board with a three-run third and took advantage of two straight Southmont (0-7, 0-5 SAC) errors as a Corbin Meadows hit got past Mountie second baseman CJ Newgent. South did their only run in the bottom of the third when Dean McGaughey singles and later scored before the third out was recorded on the base paths. North addedd four runs in the fourth, three more in the fifth, and two in the seventh.
“We’ve out-hit our a lot lately and do have some wins to show for it but we know it could have been a better week,” Charger coach Matt Voorhees said. “We scored 12 runs but I still felt like we left too many men on base. Give credit to South as (Phisher) Benge and (Cale) Chadd did a nice job early on. We wouldn’t like to strike out as much as we did today but still were able to to get 12 hits and score 12 runs so that was a good thing to see especially against a conference and county opponent.”
Recent Wabash commit Jarrod Kirsch got the start for the Chargers on the mound and in five innings gave up just one hit and struck out 10 while walking three. Roman Utterback came in to throw two perfect innings while striking out five of the six batters he faced. Kirsch went 3-4 at the plate while Ross Dyson went 2-4 as did Meadows and Cade Cole. Isaiah Hopkins, Austin Sulc, and Utterback had one hit each for the Chargers in the county win.
Southmont and their young team continues to take the ‘one game at a time mentality’ as the Mounties will take the lessons they learned to continue to try to improve. The thing that Mountie coach Bill Woods wants to see the most improvement on is on the defensive side as South committed six errors in the loss.
“If we don’t make the routine plays, we’re going to continue to struggle,” Woods said. “I did think that Phisher threw well and after three or so innings he was only at 45 pitches. IF we made some plays behind him he could’ve been even lower. I would like us to get some of our experienced guys like Gunnar and Cale to start hitting too. We have to start scoring some runs.”
McGaughey did have the only Mountie hit. Benge in three and a third innings gave up seven runs but just three earned on seven hits. He struck out three and walked one. Chadd threw an inning and two-thirds and gave up three runs (all earned) while striking out four and walking three on three hits. Shirk came in to throw the final two innings and gave up two hits and two runs (one earned) while striking out and walking one.
“Coach Woods and Coach Chadd are doing a nice job with this team and they’re just really young,” Voorhees said of the Mounties. “I think that their future is looking bright and they just have to stay the course and keep working. Coach (Brett) Motz and I talk a lot about how we want really good baseball in Montgomery County and that includes wanting to see this program succeed.”
North will be back in action Monday which gets another five-game week started. The Chargers welcome West Lafayette on Monday, travels to Frankfort on Tuesday before hosting the Hot Dogs on Wednesday. Friday they travel to Parke Heritage and host Seeger on Saturday.
Southmont welcomes sectional foe Greencastle on Monday and will have more county action Tuesday and Wednesday when they take on Crawfordsville.
